Five-Year Course For Army Cooks

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30857, 16 September 1965, Page 11

Five-Year Course For Army Cooks

The second-year class of Army apprentice chefs sat for the craftsmen’s certificate in professional cookery at Waiouru Camp recently. The examination class, numbering 22 Regular Force cadets, is from 53 young apprentices who are engaged on the only indentured apprentice chef scheme in New Zealand. The higher certificate of professional cookery, gained at the successful conclusion of the course, is a qualification recognised throughout the world, and the examination is set by the head office of the Cookery and Food Association jn London. Catering involves much more than just plain (or fancy) cooking. In a large Army kitchen, hygiene, management of staff, stores accounting and organisation of meals, mean that the chef in charge must have a high degree of specialised knowledge. The apprentice scheme

is designed to impart this knowledge as well as produce skilled and competent cooks. Experts of the Army Service Corps who have had years of cooking in the field, and who are experienced in catering for large numbers of men, instruct the apprentices at the Army Service Corps catering school at Waiouru—a training depot that has every modern aid to cooking instruction. The syllabus is the same as that followed by civilian chefs in expensive professional schools in Europe.

The course is divided into a number of subjects, all of which figure in the yearly examinations. The extensive range is shown by the headings for the various divisions —butchery and larder, sauces, soups, fish dishes, meat and poultry dishes, vegetables, pastry and sweet dishes, savouries and hot hors d’Oeuvres, egg dishes, beverages.

This programme becomes progressively mdrfi advanced as the training years pass, until, when the final examination is attempted, the apprentices are carrying out the duties of charge chefs. An Army chef is highly versatile. He must be able to switch from preparing a formal dinner in the relative comfort of a mess kitchen to cooking over a field burner in deep bush. Either way he must satisfy the palates of hungry soldiers —not always the easiest diners to please. He must also be a trained fighting soldier as well, capable of taking his place beside infantry in combat. Accounting procedures are important in an Army kitchen as enormous quantities of food are handled daily. The chef is trained to keep wastage to a minimum and to make the best use of the nutritional values of various foods in presenting a balanced and attractive menu.

The possibilities of using local food supplies in Asian countries in which the Army is serving demand that the chef knows what is available, how it is best prepared, and the health precautions that must be taken before local produce can be considered fit for consumption by New Zealand troops. In all, the Army apprentice chefs have a tough five years of study and hard work before they gain their qualification, but it is w'orth it. When Army service is finished, a welltrained chef is assured of a highly-paid civilian position.— (Army Information Service).