FEEDING THE TROOPS

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 December 1940, Page 6

FEEDING THE TROOPS

FORCES IN AUSTRALIA.

SYDNEY, November 1

The menu for AI.F. troops at the Sydney Showground camp will be varied next week by substituting a large proportion of cold meats and salads for some of the stews which, it was authoritatively admitted, have been served too frequently in the last four or five weeks. The recurrence of stew on the menu was one of the protests made when troops at one of the Showground messes counted Qut food and laughed at the unaccustomed sight of cooks in white caps during a Press inspection. The military authorities then invited Press representatives to inspect and test the food any day at three minutes’ notice. This was done. The menu was steak pie, mashed potatoes, cheese, bread and butter, and tea. The food, alowing for the enormous quantities in which it has to be cooked, was .very good. Some of the meat was fat, but the smell of the gravy was stimulating and the men were enjoying their meal. The cooks wore ordinary khaki “giggle suits” showing the stains of the morning’s work. There were no white coats and chefs’ caps except in the kitchen of the officers’ mess.

Experts admitted that the proportion of stews in the current menu was unsuitably high for hot weather. During the Winter, they said, there were ample supplies of such salad stuff as lettuce; but when the hot weather arrived, these mysteriously disappeared. It is now expected that next week salads will reappear on the menu. This will provide a half-way house to the official Summer menu, which includes ice cream, and does not come into force until December 1.