From: Johnlebl@aol.com
Date: Fri Jul 19 2002 - 21:08:11 CDT
In a message dated 07/19/2002 4:19:52 PM Central Daylight Time,
OlanWatkins@compuserve.com writes:
> I have always thought that the PTC food was pretty good, with a couple of
> exceptions. However, I may be somewhat on the strange side, as I thought
> Army chow was pretty good also.
>
> Olan
>
Reminds me of when I taught in junior high chool. The food was terrible. As
a science teacher I was teaching health and nutrition as a part of the
curriculum for 7th grade.
I let the students design some of their own experiments and they designed one
on cafeteria food. They interviewed the cooks only to find out they cooked
the food ahead of time and froze it......all of it every day in case
"something happened" so they would always have lunch ready. This was the
cafeteria managers personal decision. I was appalled. They wrote up the
experiment and sent a copy to the superintendent and all school board
members.
Whoo boy!
The principal came to see me for a visit and told me not to do that again. I
lashed back something about academic freedom or 1st ammendment freedom or
such and told him a few other tidbits.
One of which was "in the United States Army we had certified morons for
cooks, but at least they could cook fresh food and serve it to us on the same
day it was cooked and that was out of a deuce and a half truck on portable
stoves in tents."
I told him I thought a new cafeteria manager might just solve his problem but
that was his business and I was going to do the same experiment every year
for as long as I taught there. I did them for five years after he retired
and until I moved on to greener pastures.
I still see some of those same students who are grown adults now and we all
get a charge out of the fact that our class caused the school to stop serving
leftovers to the students. I take great pride in that.
Yes, Army food is Army food, but it is nutricious and hot and there is plenty
of it.
I even copied the official recipe for SOS out of the Army cookbook and
transposed it to useful measurements and fix it often for my family. 100
pounds of flour is a little much for a home kitchen recipe.
SOS was a Sunday breakfast standard at guided missle school at Ft. Bliss
where I was stationed with soldiers from every nation in NATO. They all
lined up for SOS on Sunday mornings. As for powdered eggs, I don't think
anyone uses powdered eggs, they are much more expensive than fresh ones, but
a poor cook can make fresh eggs taste like rubber ones.
At Ft. Bliss we had eggs to order and all of them you could eat. Quite an
assembly line when you order them when you first hit the line and are handed
them 30 feet later cooked to perfection the way you asked for them to be.
That is the mark of a good cook and we respected the morons who did that.
BTW, moron was what they referred to themselves as, they were all top notch
men and they took pride in what they did.
For me, I'm just a dumb coon ass, but I can cook too.
John LeBlanc
Eagle Class of 1959
Phirst Phil Ptrek 1959
PhilTrek 2002 630H2 Trek 16
My latest adventure was yesterday,
Today is not over yet!
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