Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 280, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1917 — Hotels Copy Army Meals [ARTICLE]

Hotels Copy Army Meals

A few w’eeks ago the quartermaster general’s department, faithful to its complicated task of supplying everything from shoes to sugar to a rapidly forming army of more than one million men, telegraphed an appeal to 58 leading hotel proprietors throughout the. country asking the loan of 3,840 chefs and expert cooks to teach the science of gastronomies to the kitchens of our 16 new cantonments. Now, the “browned in the oven” old mess sergeants of our regular army cooking schools —of which four have flourished for many years—are willing and anxious to sit at the feet of the capable wizards whb’lavF'fed Fifth avenue"and Tremont street; but so great is. the faith of the mess sergeant in the “Manual for Army Cooks, Issue of 1916, that they pause reflectively in their scientifically arranged pantries and allow—quite unofficially—that maybe a few of those fancy chefs will go back to their hotels with one or two choice recipes well worth trying on the favored fellow who always gets by the plush rope and calls the head waiter by his first name. As a matter of fact, M. Panchard, famous chef of the Hotel McAlpin, New York, was “lent” a while back in order to gain sufficient knowledge of army cookery to Instruct National Guard kitchens in various New York armories. Panchard spent two days at Washington barracks, where he studied the cuisine, for enlisted men; he went back to New York with his observations, together with a copy of the month’s menu. The day of Civil war hardtack and Spanish war embalmed beef is “long gone.” Emergency rations, of course, the soldier must dnrry to tide him over bad situations where the enemy fire is hotter, than the bake ovens behind the line. But for feeding his armies in barrack and trench, Uncle Sam has become a domestic scientist who thinks in terms of nutritive values and a psychologist who realizes that the stomach’s digestive juices will not respond unless the palate telegraphs its

approval to the brain. In the months to come, when our American “rolling kitchens” are perched reasonabiy out of range on a scarred field somewhere in. France and our boys from home are emptying their plates of a generous helping of “El Rancho” stew, they, may lift their bullet-proof helmets to, the printed consoler, comforter and friend which has followed them to the trenches —the “Manual for Army Cooks,” issue of 1916. 1 > As a matter of history, the present volume of official recipes is about a dozen years old. It has been collected from many sources by many wise men adorned with uniforms and backed by general orders; but its choicest and best originated in the instinctive inimitable methods of Aunt Diana, who ’concocted her champion waffles by "jes’ tastin’.” In fact, a large majority of the good and fine points in Uncle Sam’s dally menu for his Sammiefe is due to an old commissary sergeant of Fort Riley. His name was Dunne, and he was one of those "born s to the griddle," who has the same advantage over the ordinary aspiranj kitchen honors that Kubelik had from birth over the little girl next door. He was not a man of education in the ordinary acceptance of the word, but he was a first-

class army cook. On* scraps of wrapping paper or old bills he kept a copy of every recipe he had ever tried. These were edited by Colonel Holbrook, then in command at Fort Riley, and published in a little book called “Methods of Handling Army Rations,” which was developed into the “Manual for Army Cooks” the textbook in the army schools for cooks and bakers started In 1900 by General Sharpe, now quartermaster general. There is a legend to the effect that there are several . amusing miislcal diatribes against the army food, but questioning of officers and men at the Washington Barracks school does not reveal them. One sergeant —one of the three “noncoms” in line for their commissions—said that when the food was bad the men “got the growl” and wouldn’t sing at all, and when It was good they\ “felt fine and sang, the prettiest songs they knew.” It is rather heartening to think that the men can have the same food in the field as they ao in barracks. This is accomplished by the bakeries, which are portable, easily taken down and set up, and by the very remarkable “rolling kitchens,” which cook a meal as the army marches, having lunch or supper ready when the order comes to pitch camp. All of these kitchens have stoves for burning oil and also arrangements for the. use of coal or wood. One model, of which the government has ordered a great many, has tiyo double boilers, where oatmeal, for Instance, may be. cooked #s the big stove on wheels trails on supply wagon or struck. Also there are direct heat boilers where coffee may be made, or one of the many delicious, stews, the familiar Irish, the savory “El Rancho” (containing everything eatable on a ranch), or the very delectable American stew, Invented on the Mexican border and the first favorite at Sammies’ table. a. ■' There is also an oven where a roast may be brought to a turn, and, as a surprise tQ you, a big, smooth plate where flapjacks come to life. One kitchen will feed 200 men, a war-strength company, and It will need thfree men to operate it. Trailing each kitchen Is a tireless cooker with four large compartments. These are very Convenient In that the tin receptacles fit either the stovo or the tireless department and can be transferred without the bother of emptying of food from one vessel to another.

Tbere are now' four regular schools for army cooks —at Fort Sam Houston, Tex.; Fort Riley, Kan.; Monterey, Cal., and Washington barracks. The cantonments increased these schools manyfold. It takes about four* months of rigorous instruction to make a first-class army cook, but under the intensive method the cantonment cooks will bd educated in half this time. There are many very delicious and exceedingly efficient recipes in the “Manual for Army Cooks, and Uncle Sam gives his boys all three of their excellent meals for an average of 40 cents a day. If the economy of 40 cents a kitchen could be brought Into all American homes we would hear little of food conservation, for the utilization of every edible molecule is nothing short of marvelous, as is the system of accounting for every ingredient that comes out of the storeroom. —Wal» lace Irwin in Louisville Courier-Journal. 1