The relationship between an army and the food it eats is long and tumultuous. Military food needs to be enduring, transportable, and palatable, and the latter is often the first requirement discarded. GIs in World War II frequently complained about their “C” rations and the exotic alternate explanations for the acronym of current USA army rations, the MREs, include such things as “Morsels, Regurgitated, Eviscerated” and “Meals, Rarely Edible.” The actual meaning, “Meal, Ready to Eat” seems commonplace by comparison.
At the same time, however, food is comfort, and long has been. The chance to eat something warm or drink something hot has long been one of the few breaks a soldier might get in the trenches or in combat. A friend, who was a British army officer in the 1990s, recalled patrolling the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and being pinned down by an IRA sniper. As his unit lay flat under a line of bushes, with rainwater filtering through the leaves, his sergeant tugged at his arm. The NCO had gotten a small portable stove going and was boiling water on it. “Cup of tea, sir?” the sergeant asked.
The New York Times does a nice job of laying this out in America’s current wars, including an explanation of “Combat Espresso”:
“Combat espresso,” on the other hand, is brutal. The creamer, instant coffee and sugar are poured directly into one’s mouth and then washed down with water.
Starbucks, it isn’t, but solace sometimes comes in strange packages.
4 comments
September 5, 2010 at 12:57 pm
nick
Taking a couple mouthfuls of anything powdered is pretty tough, but I guess when you’re in hell, comfort is comfort.
September 6, 2010 at 12:23 am
Richard J
One of the many lessons that the British Army picked up from fighting WW2 with some of the worst equipment (bar Japan and Italy) was that all post-war tanks from the Centurion onwards have been heavily armoured, powerfully-gunned, and all have a kettle built in.
September 6, 2010 at 10:12 am
TF Smith
Coffee has a long history in the US military, and its adoption, as a replacement for the liquor ration in the Army and Navy, was official policy as early as the 1830s, which tied directly to the rise of the temperance movement.
“Navy coffee” – brewed strong and black, but adulterated with salt – was the result. The WW II version – described as being “typical” only if it could float a spoon (if the spoon sinks the coffee was too weak) – was pretty much the standard even during the Cold War, at least based on my own experience.
I wrote a paper on the rise of Navy coffee as social history as an undergrad; one of the source materials I found was Hanson Baldwin’s “The End of the Wine Mess.” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 84 (1958), which gives a pretty entertaining account of the last binge engaged in by officers of the Atlantic Fleet in 1914, after Josephus Daniels ordered the service to go dry.
Whether the sobriquet – “Navy Joe” – is actually a reference to Daniels or not is up for some debate, but it is a great anecdote.
Best,
September 10, 2010 at 9:34 am
Craig Swain
MREs have evolved through four or more generations, of which I’ve had the pleasure/displeasure of subsisting on most menus.
Today’s coffee ration is usually “market” brand freeze dried. The earliest MREs had a generic powdery substance, with the consistency of flour, as the coffee ration. It’s been years since my introduction to MREs, but I recall, as with anything in the Army, a training guide. The guide was formatted like old PS magazine (comic book like).
Instructions highlighted that MRE coffee could be consumed much like dipping tobacco. Pour the packet between teeth and cheek, let it hydrate naturally. Easy way to pull in the caffeine where no hot water existed. I’ll admit to trying it a few times. Not tasty but it worked.