Good Soup, Good Meat

U.S. soldiers are the best fed in the world. They get better food than 60% of the civilian population, and the Army is so eager to have it taste right that last week in Washington a dozen experts were busy revising an Army cookbook issued only last July. The experts were headed by Mary I. Barber, formerly economist of the Kellogg Co., who went to Washington as a $1-a-year adviser of 0PM and has now become Food Consultant to the Secretary of War.

The experts all agree that Army food in the raw is usually good. But the cooks are often raw too. Even though they follow the master menus handed down by the Corps Area, Army cooks too often manage to turn even the best materials into uninviting dishes.

One trouble is that the Army is growing faster than its supply of trained cooks. Experienced chefs are rated high by commanding officers, who frequently try to steal each other's cooks. One former Colony Club man is now serving under a general who borrowed him and then refused to return him. Graduates from Army cooking schools also rate high. Each Corps Area has its own schools, which are turning out hundreds of cooks and bakers a month.

Come & Get It. There are no less than 39 items on the Army's ration chart. Even the iron rations of 1942 (a can of pork & beans, a can of meat and vegetable hash, a can of meat and vegetable stew, three cans of biscuit bread, enough soluble bean to make a pint of coffee, a square of chocolate candy) are a vast improvement over the "tinned willie" of World War I.

U.S. Army rations were not always so sumptuous. During the Revolution, a soldier was issued daily (if he got it) 1 Ib. of meat, 6 oz. of bread, 1 pt. of milk, rice, 1 qt. of spruce beer. He had to do his cooking himself. The War of 1812 added another item to the list: vinegar, which was mixed with sugar and water to make a highly regarded tonic. In the Civil War, Union soldiers got 20 oz. of beef, 22 oz. of bread,* 2 1/2 oz. of beans, rice, green coffee, sugar, vinegar. Pepper was added to the menu in 1863. The daily cost of the food was 22-c-. By the time World War I broke out, Army rations had increased to 19 basic items, and cost per man was 33-c- a day. Present cost: 50-c- a day.

The Army cookbook is full of advice to cook dough until it is a "delicate brown," to keep meat "succulent and tender." There are also plenty of suggestions for mess sergeants, who are responsible for adapting Army menus to the locales in which their troops serve. Although soldiers in their first six months of service gain an average 8 to 16 Ib., few of them are satisfied with the food that is dished up to them.

The best index to the need for better Army cooking is the fact that the soldier's favorite dish is still beans--always the same, but one that bad cooks can do little to spoil.

*Sometimes a euphemism. Cf. the Northern Army song, Hard Crackers, Come Again No More.

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