A BATTLESHIP KITCHEN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 17

A BATTLESHIP KITCHEN.

The most important place in the 'battleship, as in connection with an army, ie the kitchen. It is stated that an army fights upon ite stomach. How •much more a navy. Therefore the kitchen of the Japanese warships was a more interesting place. Here were prepared the meals whkh built up the bone and muscle of the sturdy little chaps, whose wrestling and sword-play were witnessed with 6uch interest by the visitors invited to meet his Excellency RealAdmiral Matsumura. Such a, curious place it was to be v called a kitchen. A small triangular space, containing three huge, but shallow boilers, with lids on pulleys, and in charge-of three whitedressed cooks, whose English was equalled by the reporter's Japanese. A swinging of arms followed and up went the lids. "Rice," said the guide. But it was a very small, fine sample—not the sort grown for outside consumption. Here the dinner of the sailors was cooked. Each man gets a pound a day of rice, half a pound of bread, and half a pound of meat or fish, besides soup. At least, so the reporter gathered after much gesticulating and comparing and shaking of heads amongst the cooks. In another place huge culdrone were getting ready for tea, and in yet another queer things were bubbling in pots for the officers' dinner. Dried salmon was one— the emell is with us still—and steamed sca-grase was being prepared to thicken a stew. It was just the plain seaweed we kick away on our beaches, for all the difference Western eyes could see, but here it was used to "thicken stews and flavour soups. Here were queer vegetables preserved in tins, something like asparagus to look at, but "parsley," said the cook. It tasted like nothing "on earth. Many curious dishes were brought forward, but unfortunately about this time the reporter's stock of pantomime gesture had exhausted itself, and the English of the cooks had long J flown; so, smiling and bowing chann- | ingly, we reluctantly parted.