CONCENTRATED FOOD

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 4, 6 January 1943, Page 6

CONCENTRATED FOOD

FOR ARMY IN THE FIELD (Official War Correspondent N.Z.E.F.) A South Pacific Base, Dec. 14. The cook pointed to a container about the size ol a grocer's biscuit tin. It was fitted with small, hard, yellowish sticks, with the texture of uncooked macaroni. “Potatoes lor a hundred men,” the cook said. He opened two more tins, each containing what looked like pale green leaves, dried and chopped up. “Those are cabbages, and tne others are onions,’ he said.

We were looking at dehydrated vegetables, a revolutionary development in tne feeding ol an army in tne field. The New Zealand Expeditionary Force gets a considerable part of its rations in this form, almost everything else comes out of a can. The lood is varied, satisfying and good. Witn imaginative cooking, it fails only a little short of fresn rations. Moreover it is easily handled and nonperishable, and takes up lar less snipping and vehicle space. Tne most remarxable fact about the food, compared with the preserved rations available in the Middle East, is its variety. Sausages, beef, hash, luncheon meat, stews, red salmon, a spiced meat and bean dish called cnin con carne, beans, peas, carrots and other foodstuffs come out of tins. There is a wide range of breaklast cereals, fruit juices, preserved fruit and sauces. All butter and milk are canned. Eggs are in powder form. To-day’s Kitchen fatigue rates a tinopener as its handiest weapon. The day when long hours were spent in "spud peeling” and preparing vegetables may’disappear altogether. Fresh potatoes and onions are sometimes added to the ration, but otherwise the cook empties a measure of those little yellow sticks and another of those dried leaves into his boilers, adds water and salt—and the dinner vegetables are on. One form ol dehydrated potatoes is cooked almost as soon as boiling water covers it. An example of the potentialities ol preserved rations is a tasty green sa ad that can be made by soaking dried cabbage and onions without cooking them, and mixing in canneci beans, peas or tomatoes. The cook follows a menu chart devised by the United States Army, it sets out three different, scientificallybalanced meals for each day. his work is made considerably lighter but w,fJ ea V e s ai >, Still depends Oh the’care which he serves up the lood and tile thought he gives to new ways 01 varying it. Preserved food can be taore unpalatable than the worst-pre-pared meal of fresh foodstuffs. P