Citations:skillygalee

Noun: "an oatmeal gruel"

 * 1857 Daniel Bunce & Ludwig Leichhardt, Australasiatic reminiscences of twenty three-years' wanderings in Tasmania and the Australias: including travels with Dr. Leichhardt in north or tropical Australia, J.T. Hendry, p150
 * No visible improvement in the party, except Perry, who ate a whole quart of skillygalee, which he managed to retain in his stomach for the first time for many days; and I was rejoiced at the circumstance.
 * 1867 William Henry Smyth, The sailor's word-book: an alphabetical digest of nautical terms, including some more especially military and scientific ... as well as archaisms of early voyagers, etc, Blackie and Son, p629
 * Hence, skillygalee, or burgoo, the drink made with oatmeal and sugar, and served to seamen in lieu of cocoa as late as 1814.
 * 1999 Hilary Hyland, The Wreck of the Ethie, Peachtree Publishers, p28
 * Fergus and the coal stokers who worked for him were having their morning bowls of skillygalee, oatmeal that helped ward off the stomach cramps caused by the smoke and fumes they inhaled.
 * 2005 Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Steve Noon, Nelson's Sailors, Osprey Publishing, p24
 * Breakfast was served at 8am and sometimes consisted of skillygalee, a sort of oatmeal gruel prepared in fatty water and which by the time of Trafalgar included butter and sugar.

Noun: "hardtack fried in pork fat"

 * 1951 Bruce Catton, Mr Lincoln's Army, Doubleday, p186
 * Now and then a whole hardtack was soaked in water, drained, and fried in pork fat, when it went under the name of “skillygalee” and was, said a veteran, “certainly indigestible enough to satisfy the cravings of the most ambitious dyspeptic.”
 * 1958 Bell Irvin Wiley, The common soldier in the Civil War, Grosset & Dunlap, P237
 * Some Yanks made a dish they called “skillygalee” by soaking the hardtack in cold water and then browning them in pork fat and seasoning to taste.
 * 1994 John Zubritsky, Fighting men: a chronicle of three black Civil War soldiers, Brandon Books, p215
 * “Sure and after you dry up some, I got a nice piece of fatback to make us some skillygalee. You interested?”
 * 2001 William Keim, Civil War Sergeant,  AuthorHouse, p92
 * These crackers were used to thicken soups, crumbled in cold water and then fried in pork fat or lard, and made into a dish called Skillygalee, prepared by soaking the whole biscuit for a long period in cold water and then frying it in pork fat, salting it to individual taste.
 * 2004 Brian Leehan, Pale Horse at Plum Run: The First Minnesota at Gettysburg, Minnesota Historical Society Press, p200
 * Skillygalee was born of left-over pork grease and crackers too tough to bite and chew.