RATIONS FOR SOLDIERS

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 83, 6 October 1915, Page 2

RATIONS FOR SOLDIERS

A particularly atrocious London murder supplied sailors with the name to cooked canned meat served up. in the fo'c'stle. " Harriet Lane " became-the designation of the Sunday variant to cornea pork and mahogany salt beef. Shackleton, too, told his audiences how a curious pemniican-like compost was • called "hooshe," and was highly esteemed down in the frozen South. The canner may call his goods what he likes, but the soldier or sailor has his own nomenclature, and nothing will move him to change once the name is selected. " Hot Maconochie " is the name given in Franc© and Flanders and- in the Dardanelles to a new thing in canned foods. Messrs. Ellis and Manton, of Wellington, have received sample tins of this" food. It is unlike canned meat, and opens out with an aroma characteristic of the freshlymade stew. It consists of beef, haricot beans," carrots, onions, and potatoes, and, can be eaten cold or made hot in the tin. One tin forms a square meal for any man. The tin is circular and pressed out, so that there is no danger of , its becoming unsoldered on the, fire. Presumably the tin is pierced or opened before heating, otherwise it would become a bomb. However, the point is that this is a sample of the rations supplied to men in the trenches, and it is excellent testimony to the thoroughness that has marked the British organisation of the food supply of the British Army and Navy in time of war. It is no mere tabloid ration, but something that gives the eater a sense of fulness which concentrated foods, however nutritious, fail to do.