SC - TI Article - Support Kitchen

[Morgan Cain]

I have not read all the messages about this article, so forgive me if
something like this has already been posted.

Maybe you should get the FACTS about the subject before dismissing the
article as "trash."  That support kitchen has been working for MANY years
without a problem.  It was NOT copied out of some modern handbook; the
preferred foodstuffs were selected by trial and error (try and see if they
fighters eat it -- if not, the item was an error).  The goal was to give
fighters something right after fighting at war that would give them enough
strength to take off armor and shower, and start replenishing lost salts and
body fluids.  I don't care how hard the waterbearers work, not all fighters
will drink even enough to replace what they are sweating away, in the course
of a battle.  They are dehydrated and often energy-depleted when they walk
off a battlefield, and they need foods that will answer those needs, FAST.

I have never lived there, but I have seen the support kitchen develop over
the years.  I have also seen other places adopt it for their armies.

The problems with period foods are (1) many of them are not appropriate to
feed to hot, hungry, salt-deprived fighters, and (2) many of them are
difficult to convey to a far distant war, especially in the quantities
needed for a week, with refrigeration and preparation problems.  [For the
record, from research I have done, except for the varieties the dried fruits
are period (even the pineapple, so there!).]  And both jerky and dried fruit
are easy for fighters to eat while in armor, important when there are long
battles, multiple battles run end-on-end, and/or various long delays in the
fighting.

If you have experience at making a successful, completely period support
kitchen, I am sure that TI would welcome your article.  However, don't go
trash-talking an article detailing a HIGHLY successful programme just
because it does not meet YOUR standards.

                   ---= Morgan, who had thought better of some people

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To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to
be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final
blow, the coup de Grace for the painter as well as for the picture.
- - Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)