Hello, I am working on a piece about the best and worst food memories from WWII vets. All branches. From one sentence to a paragraph or two. WACS, SPARS ETC welcome, Canadian, Aussie, Mexican other allied veterans are welcome as well. Stories can be first hand, or from a spouse, kids etc. Credit will be given in the form of a submission line. Thanks to everyone of our service men and women. Please email any questions. Thanks - Kent thedeckchef@hotmail.com
My dad kept his mess kit form WW2 and we often used it when camping. This would bring out the few stories he told us about the war. He gave it to me when I joined the Boy Scouts. I bought a new one and thew his away. I often regret that. He told me that compared to the food he had eaten growing up, Army food was fantastic. He loved it. Their rations came in wax coated card board boxes and he would save them, plus anyone else's that didn't want theirs, and use them to make small fires to brew tea. He also used toilet paper soaked in alcohal on the front lines where you couldn't have smoke. He wasn't fond of the rations and said some were very old. I think he said that some were labeled WW1, but I'm not positive. His best meal of the war was on Thanksgiving on Bougainville. He said that the cooks made a full Thanks Giving meal and brought it up to the front lines. They ate out of their mess kits.
my Father in-law served aboard a tin can in the pacific 43-45, the hellish-meal was the continual plop of mutton on metal, to this day you mention leg of lamb he starts to turn green
My father's worst had to be tuna fish that he became very ill from. He would never touch tuna as long as he lived and wouldn't even pet the cats if we had given them tuna oil (later water/broth) to drink. He did keep his can opener- I still have it today!
Whitaker, I don't normally endorse the posting of the same question in multiple forums, but you might get better results if you pose your question in the threads in this part of the forum. Honor, Service and Valor - World War II Forums There are a good many veterans who visit the forum and they will be more likely to take notice of your question if you ask it in "their" thread. But, before you do, plese go through the threads and see what comments on food you can glean from their posts.
My grandfather fought in the Finnish army, so not an allied vet. But anyways, after the war he absolutely refused to eat peasoup, oatmeal or lingonberry porridge. He said that those three were basicly the only meals they had for 4 years in the front. And more often than not the food was cold when it reached them. The one experience he did speak with great affection was Marshall Mannerheims 75th birthday in 1942 when all Finnish soldiers were given a large ration of Finnish vodka.
I have a picture of a 2nd Armored tanker sitting on a jerry can with what appears to be a leg bone of a cow with quite a bit of meat left hanging on. Seems whenever an animal was killed--sometimes intentional, it would get butchered to suppliment the C-ration diet while on the move.
I was sorting through some of my fathers service records and things and came across this menu for Christmas on Morotai 1945. Brian
In the UK eggs became very scarce, but small boxes of "powdered egg" became available. They passed muster when used in baking cakes, but the only way to serve them as a meal, was to reconstiute them with water, and heat them, well stirred, as a form of scrambled egg. The taste left a great deal to be desired. Similarly, "powdered milk" was available in tins, to be recostituted with water, but only just about palatable,
Margarine, and that was post war. Then they tried to con us through the century by developing it into a so called healthy food that even protected us from heart disease. Butter BAD margarine GOOD, a la 1984. NO, butter natural, margarine full of cr**p.
It is misleading to imply that margarine was post-war rather than wartime. Given the minuscule size of the butter ration, margarine was necessarily used both as a spread and in cooking. This was not a particular deprivation for poorer families, who could not afford butter, or only as an occasional luxury.
I always think of Spam. It amuses me because years after the war my dad would take us camping and try to make us eat Spam at least twice a day. Fried spam was bacon (or so he said), Spam in eggs was an omelet, Spam on bread was pork sandwiches, Spam fried with potatoes was Irish potatoes. He wasn't a cruel man, I think he just really developed a taste for Spam, and since my mom wouldn't have it in the house, he'd make us eat it during camping weeks when she stayed home. The only break, really, was if we caught us a mess of rainbow trout, then he'd relent and we could have trout for dinner. If he could have thought of a way to slip Spam into the trout, we'd have ate it with fish also. .
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe> When I used to go down the track...my mother would hand my brother and I a chunk of cheese and a tomato cut in half for lunch (the flies were for taste)...Barra for tea though!
I am talking about MY post war experiences with margarine. It first raised it's ugly head in the 1860's in France so was not a new invention for ww2. I know of people who would rather use lard or dripping as a spread or in cooking than margarine during the war.
I had forgotten about Spam, dad used to always have some in the cupboard, I must have got used to it as it didn't really worry me eating from memory. Not like tripe, kidney or brains.