We traded buttons to the guards for red peppers, and made our mush, or bread, or dumplings, hot with the fiery-pods, in hopes that this would make up for the lack of salt, but it was a failure.
One pinch of salt was worth all the pepper pods in the Southern Confederacy.

My little squad--now diminished by death from five to three--cooked our rations together to economize wood and waste of meal, and quarreled among ourselves daily as to whether the joint stock should be converted into bread, mush or dumplings.

The decision depended upon the state of the stomach.

If very hungry, we made mush; if less famished, dumplings; if disposed to weigh matters, bread.
This may seem a trifling matter, but it was far from it.

We all remember the man who was very fond of white beans, but after having fifty or sixty meals of them in succession, began to find a suspicion of monotony in the provender.