[Sca-cooks] Military cooking, was Re: OT: Veracity of Entertainment Sources

Susan Fox selene at earthlink.net
Mon Mar 31 07:58:54 PDT 2008


James Davis wrote:
> On Mar 31, 2008, at 7:38 AM, Susan Fox wrote:
>
>   
> [snip]
>   
>> Um... food content... the guy who played the mess hash slinger wrote a
>> cookbook, SECRETS OF THE M*A*S*H MESS, but it was really not Army food
>> by any means, just a hook to hang a cookbook on.  I salute the poor
>> military members worldwide who happen to be "foodies" and have to live
>> with the very opposite of what they want to be eating.
>>
>> Selene
>>     
>
> When I was in Germany, we were lucky in that the mess halls and the O- 
> club had local German cooks, who would throw out the "planned menus"  
> the Army commissary service suggested and do whatever they pleased!   
> It was WONderful.  1st Support Brigade had the best chow hall in  
> Europe, I think.
>
> Jared
> (remembering spiessbraten in the messhall)
Spiessbraten?  Son, that's just down-home Idar-Oberstein barbecue, I bet 
all the Southern boys loved that! 
Did I show you this web site? The path of this dish is fascinatingly 
convoluted.  Not SCA time period, but interesting anyway. 
http://www.kitchenproject.com/kpboard/recipes/SpiessbratenSchwenkbraten.htm

You were lucky that no stickler for regulations made your German cooks 
stick with the planned menus.  That could have been Sad.

I seem to recall Lord Jean-Paul's stories about the Philippino cooks in 
his part of the world, who agreed to cook the lobsters that the Navy 
Divers brought up as long as they could take half.  Whew, sounded steep 
but the divers agreed.  Turned out, the half they wanted were the 
lobster heads, while the American boys wanted the nice meaty tails and 
not so much of the "bug parts."  Happy compromise for all.

What was that song?  "The Navy gets the gravy but the Army gets the 
beans!" o/ o/ o/

Selene



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