FOOD IN THE TRENCHES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 24, 29 January 1916, Page 7

FOOD IN THE TRENCHES.

GOOD DISHES MADE,

One of the essentials the men who go to the front should know is what to do with the food when it is handed out. Supposing the ration is bully beef, biscuits, rice, unions, raisins, saga" tea, bacon, and jam, the clever trencher will niinc e up the bully beef even if he has no mincer, add a little ground biscuits (which you grind yourself) and w'ild thyme found all over Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia. This composition is rolled into rissoles with tli e addition of some extracts from the daily ration of bacon, and when fried up a very appetising meal is available.

Men going abroad would do well to study this formula. After the main feed has been disposed of there comes the srveets. With the rice go the raisins, surely Eastern product. Most of those strange to the ways of the East devour the gentle raisin on sight and pelt their officers with the stones, but that surely is the way of the novice.

What a man of experience does is to stew them, thereby getting the full value of the fruit. The raisin, after simmering for a few minutes, developes into a fulli brother to th e success ful grape, he of course having been a grape before he started from the vineyard. A little cinnamon and cloves added make a meal such as one would get in his own house, or, at least it tastes like that in the trenches. Men here may scoff at the suggestion of including a little cinnamon and cloves in their kit, but they svill find that its absence makes all the difference to the meal. A little spice takes up no room in the kit. A -welcome change to the ordinary bully beef stew is the “curried beef”prepared by the old soldier. He takes the precaution to see that in his kit are a few ounces of curry powder, that take up really no room. All this has to be done is to add a teasoonful of curry powder to his dixie of stew and he will imagine be is back among thp eating-houses of Isew Zoaalnd. For making porridge a good idea is to secure a tin lid of any description and punch it full of holes with nails. On this you grate your biscuits until you -have a coarse meal. Sprinkle this into boiling water until the consistency of porridge is obtained. As the biscuit has already been twice cooked, it is ready for eating almost at once. The addition of jam, which is part of the ration, make the dish one of the best.

Another excellent dish relished in the trenches is a- third of a dixie of vice already boiled, covered with a layer of jam and then topped with toasted bread, providing you can obtain th 0 bread.

To make Life worth living in the trenches a man has to use his head with whatever eating material he becomes possessed of There are all manner of dishes to be made from ordinary faro, and one can do a lot with bullv beef and biscuits.