CONCENTRATED FOOD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1943, Page 6

CONCENTRATED FOOD

RATIONS IN PACIFIC ISLANDS.

DEHYDRATED VEGETABLES.

Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) A SOUTH PACIFIC BASE, Dec. 14.

The cook pointed to a container about the size of a grocer’s biscuit tin. It was filled with small, hard, yellowish sticks, with the texture of uncooked macaroni. “Potatoes for 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 the others are onions,” he said.

We were looking at dehydrated vegetables, a revolutionary development in the feeding of an army in the field. The New Zealand Expeditionary Force gets a considerable part of its rations in this form, and almost everything else comes out of a can. The food is varied, satisfying and good. With imaginative cooking, it falls only 'a little short of fresh rations. Moreover, it is easily handled and non-perishable, and takes up far less shipping and vehicle space. The most remarkable 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 chili con carne, beans, peas, carrots, and other foodstuffs come out of tins. There is a wide range of breakfast cereals, fruit juices, preserved fruit and sauces. All butter and milk are canned. Eggs are in powder form.

Today’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 of dehydrated potatoes is cooked almost as soon as boiling water covers it. An example of the potentialities of preserved rations is a tasty green salad that can be made by soaking dried cabbage and onions without cooking them, and mixing in canned beans, peas or tomatoes. The cook follows a menu chart devised by the United States Army. It sets out three different, scietifically-balanc-ed meals for each day. His work is made considerably lighter, but a great deal still depend:.; on the care with which he serves un the food and the thought he gives to new ways of varying it. Preserved food can be more unpalatable than the worst-prepared meal of fresh foodstuffs. r