JAPANESE DIET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 93, 16 October 1943, Page 5

JAPANESE DIET

EMERGENCY RATIONS

'(N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.)

ADVANCED PACIFIC BASE,

Contrary to the usual belief, the 'Japanese in the Solomons appears to feed very well on a balanced diet comparable with the sustaining food furnished European armies. If necessary, of course, he can exist for long periods on the proverbial smell of an oil rag, or, more literally, on a handful of rice a day—as our own men can, too, for that matter. Samples of the Japanese emergency ration , obtained by Fijian patrols make interesting study. One small calico package measuring 3 by 3 by \\ inches lasts one man one day. In it are seven porridge biscuits, which swollen in water will fill a large pannikin; one compressed fish cake for each meal, which in water forms an excellent soup; two lumps of sugar,' and one tiny slab of compressed plum. The plum, a normal appetiser in Japanese civil life, is pickled green without cooking, and in the raw looks much like an olive. Cooked and compressed with sugar for the ration issue,, it shows a pinkish tinge. Thanks to the presence of salt in the fish cakes, this Japanese ration can keep a man sustained for at least a week. Allied servicemen who have fought In Guadalcanal and New Georgia have collected a mass of relics and curiosities, including fake and genuine Allied paper money, Japanese bank-notes, bonds, and coins, well-woven cream blankets, and a rather childish assortment of amusements, prominent among which is the yo-yo toy that had its /craze in England a dozen years ago. A strange toy, indeed for a fighting soldier to take into battle. And watching the enemy when he deems him-' self secure in camp areas, observers have noted with amazement childish prattling and playing as of youngsters •in home backyards.