SEA COOKS HAVE CHANGED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 19

SEA COOKS HAVE CHANGED

The Navy No Longer Lives on “Salt Junk” and “Hard Tack”

IT is just 30 years since cooking was recognised by the Navy as a specialised service, states the

There is an historical basis for the picture, for in an attempt to improve conditions affoat in Queen Anne’s time the Lord High Admiral directed the Navy Board to appoint cooks for the Queen’s ships, but at the same time charged them “to give the preference to such cripples and maimed persons as are pensioners to the Chest at Chatham.” The Chest was a fund instituted by Elizabeth for the relief of disabled seamen, and the original chest in which the money was kept is still preserved at Greenwich. Salt Junk and Sea Pie To the eighteenth century sea cooks as described by Ned Ward, “the composing of a minc’d Pye is metaphysics.” They made soup by boiling down old bones for three days and then, to thicken it a little, the meat for the day was put in for an hour or two and when parboiled taken out to finish by baking. Dried peas were added to the broth, and the mixture was actually the most popular of all the fare provided. The meat of those days was always salt beef or salt pork, and its general name of “salt junk” shows the nature of it, for junk was the bulrush of which ropes were formerly made. Dried salt cod was at one time part of the ration, and Pepys remarks of its storage near the keelson; “It is odds but the bilge water spoils two if not three of the six months fish by scenting it.” It was only after 1850 that preserved meat was generally issued to the Navy. No beverage except “burgoo” was made, and this unpalatable mixture of boiled oatmeal sweetened with molasses only passed out of use after 1825, when cocoa was made a ration. Improving the System The whole system of rationing and cooking in the Navy called for complete overhaul at the beginning of the present century. The reforming activities of Lord Fisher turned to this as to many other branches of the service, and ifliule he was Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth he had a trenchant report on the subject drawn up by his staff. Shortly afterwards the Admiralty appointed a committee under RearAdmiral Login to inquire into the victualling and cookery arrangements of the Navy. They found that the cooking “left much to be desired,” and that the duties of a cook were “more analogous to those of a stoker than of a chef.” “The great ignorance of cookery” on the part of those responsible for preparing the meals was emphasised with examples. Thus, one man “cut up an excellent sirloin of beef to make a ‘pot mess’ because it was the regular day for that description of dinner in his particular mess.” The staple midday meal of the lower deck, it was reported, was

either baked meat and potatoes or a sea-pie. Very few of the cooks were capable of preparing any other form of dish. Moreover, the galley equipment was roundly condemned. “It is practically impossible, in any class of ship, to cook the dinners in less than two or three batches,” with the result that they “were either sodden or lukewarm by the time they reach the men.” No bread-making appliances were at that time installed in any class of warship, and unless fresh bread could be obtained from the shore the men were obliged to eat ship’s biscuit of the type that had been in use 200 years earlier, though it was not, fortunately, of the same weevilly vintage. The Admiralty acted promptly on the Login Committee’s report. Enlistment of a properly trained staff of cooks was begun, the training being a month’s course at the National Training College ofi Cookery. In recent years each of the naval depots at Portsmouth, Chatham, and Devonport has instituted its own cookery school, but specially suitable men are still sent to London for advanced training. A naval cookery manual was also compiled. The early editions were rather small and elementary, but it has grown to-day to a volume of some 200 pages and is a complete nautical Mrs Beeton.

naval correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.” For centuries “sea cook” had been a term of opprobrium. For generations seamen had been dependent for their meals upon the amateur and often ignorant efforts of men who were not fit for any other job afloat. Although from 1850 onwards there was a steady improvement in the quality of the victuals provided, and although from 1874 the men were able to supplement the rations by their own purchases from a dry canteen on board, the food continued to be hashed, in more senses than one, by untrained hands. The officers had their own cookery staff —and paid for it out of their own pockets—but the preparation of food for the men was in 1907 still in the hands of “cooks of the messes,” while the galley staff was still recruited from boys who did not show promise of becoming good seamen. Most people who have read any sea literature have a mental picture of the old-time sea cook as a one-legged, one-eyed hobgoblin.