SEA COOK TO NAVAL CHEF

Evening Star, Issue 23025, 2 August 1938, Page 12

SEA COOK TO NAVAL CHEF

THE HAWS FOOD IMPROVES AFTER SAD HISTORY It is just 30 years since cooking was recognised by the Navy as a specialised service. i< or centuries “ sea cook nas been a term oi opprobrium, cor generations seamen ,had been dependent tor their meals upon the amateur and olten ignorant efforts of men who were not lit for any other job afloat. Although trom 1850 onwards there was a steady improvement in the quality of the victuals provided, although from 1874 the men were able to supplement the rations by their own purchases from a dry canteen on hoard, 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 B 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.

t THE ONE-LEGGED COOK. 7 Most people who have read any sea 5 literature have a mental picture of the ■ old-time sea cook as a one-legged, one--3 eyed hobgoblin. There is an historical ■ basis for the picture, for in an attempt 3 to improve conditions afloat in Queen Anne's time the Lord High Admiral directed the Navy Board to appoint cook’s for the Queen’s ship, but at the same time charged them “ to give the preference to such cripples and maimed persons as are pensioners to the Chest of Chatham.” Ihe 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. 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 due 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 w’as made a ration. About the middle of the Victorian era improvements in victualling began, but the cooking arrangements remained primitive. Those who can recall the ships which took part in the Coronation naval review of 1902 will also recall the cramped, dark cubbyholes that were considered adequate as galleys for the meals of from 400 to 700 men. Long after the invention of steam ovens and their adoption in ocean-going liners the naval galleys were still coal-fired, and in heavy weather conking was often impossible, tor the galleys were flooded out. Yet there must have been men who really could cook, even in the conditions that existed, for there are occasional references to feasts in memoirs of lower-deck men who served from 1870 onwards. In one cruiser on the China station the canteen committee bought for Christmas one year a hundred geese and 200 fowds, and the birds were brought on board alive, to be killed and plucked by the cooks of the messes. How that quantity of poultry was ever cooked in the space available and all served up, hot at one time baffles the imagination to-day. The purchase of the poultry, it must be explained, was made possible by the system of “ savings ” which was started in Nelson’s time. Under it the men could decline to take up certain parts of the official rations and be credited with the Victualling Yard’s valuation of the “ saving.” In addition the canteen committees could spend threepence a day messing allowance for each man, and the men themselves contributed a f alfpenny a day for the purchase of extras. LORD FISHER’S REFORMS 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 while he was Commander-in-Chief at he had a trenchant report’ on the subject drawn up by his staff. It might have remained for years in an Admiralty pigeonhole, but by some means (Fisher was never at a loss for expedients) a copy of it came into the bands of the naval correspondent of a

national newspaper and was published. Shortly afterwards the Admiralty appointed a committee under Rear-Ad-miial 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 middav meal of the lower deck, it was reported, was either baked meat ami 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 hatches,” with the result that they “ were either sodden or luke-warm by the time they reached the men,” No bread-making appliances were at that time installer! 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 two hundred years earlier, though it was not, fortunately, of the same weCvi'ly vintage.

PROPER TRAINING. 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 of Cookery. In this connection it is interesting to recall that there was exhibited at the 'Royal Naval Exhibition of 1891 a certificate issued by the Liverpool Training School of Cookery to sailors after a course of lessons in cookery, and it was claimed in the catalogue that this was the first of the kind ever issued. Apparently the idea was not brought to the notice of the Admiralty until 16 years later. In recent veais each of the naval depots at 'Portsmouth, Chatham, and Devon-

port has instituted its own cookery school, but specially suitable men are still sent to London for advanced ingA 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. MODERN CHANGES. Another important change was the introduction of “ general messing,” by which all the men bad the same meals and were not at the whim of the mess cook; a standard ration was brought in and “savings” abolished. Most important ol all was a complete revision ol ideas about the size, shape, and position of the gallevs. The naval architect no longer had to fit the cooking arrangements of the ship into anv odd corners he could find. The Dreadnought, in the design of which Fisher took an active [iart, incorporated some of the earliest ideas in this direction, and more and more improvements have been added in later ships. The battle cruiser Hood was the first big man-of-war to be equipped with a complete bakery, and to-day almost every ship above the size of a destroyer has one. The modern galley stoves are all oilfired, and there is a complete cleanliness everywhere. The preparation of food is carried out on rustless metal slabs, and in the newer ships the Admiralty are now installing high-pres-sure steam dish-washing machines. The type of man who is the sea cook of today could easily be chef at a good-class hotel, and it is significant that this vear the Admiralty have decided that a limited number of qualified cooks who have spent some years in the service shall be raised to commissioned rank.