parrotheada1a wrote:

> I was a cook/ baker/ dining facility manager in the Marine Corps. 78-82
> Semper Fi to all who serve , I sleep better at night knowing that you
> are on post. Back to the topic at hand, I saw the best and the worst of
> it. Sometimes I was responsible for it too. Pardon me in advance if you
> detect any senior moments. One of my duty stations was at MCRD San
> Diego. I was there for 2 1/2 years. There were a couple of messhalls on
> the base for regular Marines, officers & enlisted. The recruits & their
> drill instructors got fed by Dining facility 569. It was here that I
> saw the best... and later on the worst.
>
> Now...the chowhall for the recruits was called "The Big 9" or " the
> Food Factory". This was no place to stand around. Slack time was at a
> very minimum. The place hummed with activity 24 hours a day. It took a
> minimum of 40 Marines a day to make a regular shift, plus 2 platoons of
> recruits doing menial tasks as part of their training. The four big
> mess decks could handle 1600 people at a sitting, all served up out of
> one kitchen/ bakeshop. Imagine something about the size of a
> supermarket. They didn't call it "The Big 9" for nothing.
>
> In the winter, the place was not so busy. There were usually only 1500-
> 2000 recruits to feed. In the spring & summer, that number started
> going up untill it peaked around the end of July. Around that time we
> could serve upwards of 12,000 per meal. That was some serious work,
> very hard and intense. You had to get all these people fed in perhaps 4
> 1/2 hours, then start up all over again as you were cleaning up from
> the last meal. Recruits usually had about a half an hour to get their
> food & eat, give or take depending on the drill instructors and
> training schedule.
>
> Graduation days were always the busiest, and lunchtime would be
> extended and run right into the dinner meal if needed. There were new
> recruits coming into the cycle, and new boot Marines, (often with their
> families attending the ceremonies) having their last meal there before
> shipping out. One fine August day in 1979, myself and about 45 other
> Marines served up 14,528 people for lunch in about 5 hours. It stood
> up as some kind of record for awhile, I don't know if it's been broken.
> Our unit got a commendation letter from the base commander for that
> one.
>
> Probably the worst I saw there was in October of that same year. I was
> off duty and woke up on Sunday morning to the sounds of sirens....lots
> of them headed towards "The Big 9" and the recruit barracks. I found
> out later that some 280 recruits, drill instructors & DF crew got an
> acute case of food poisoning. It was later determined that the night
> cooks on that shift left ham being served for breakfast sit outside the
> refrigerators after slicing into portions. Strike #1. The day shift
> came on duty at 4 AM and the chief cook let it sit. He was supposedly
> told that the ham slices had been 'recently' taken out of the cold
> storage. That was later determined to be around midnight. Strike #2.
> Strike # 3 came very quickly when roughly half the portions were cooked
> to only about 150 deg, moved into under temperature holding lockers,
> then served for breakfast. The shit figuratively hit the fan around an
> hour later. After everyone recovered, the chief cook & the night cooks
> from that shift lost stripes, and the rest of us went through 3 months
> of sanitary supervisory hell courtesy of the Naval medical corpsmen.

At the end I was a personnel sergeant. Along with the mess sgt, one y'all
don't p.o. I had the leave papers and the finance transactions. All I had
to do was delay a paper for a day or two.. never did but the impending doom
was great drama. I saw a First Sergeant get relieved over tainted food in
the field. The mess hall filled the cans and by the time the First Sergeant
delivered them on his rounds 11 hrs later...
Edrena

My wife worked as manager of the BX Service Station at Goose Bay, Labrador,
and met some customers who were English Vulcan pilots. They were nice
enough to bring us back "Twinkies" from Omaha. We only had vanilla,
chocolate, and strawberry ice-cream. On rare occasions we got Neapolitan
and about once every 3 months there was coffee flavored ice cream. Guess
which flavor she buys now, right; vanilla.

At Eielson AFB near Fairbanks, we used to catch and send salmon to Omaha in
trade for fresh eggs.

Dwayne

"Sandi" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
>
> The Joneses wrote:
>> Thanks to all the vets here - it's Memorial Day in the US. The worst
>> meal I ever had was that one Thanksgiving at West Fort Hood. The
>> turkey was *not* all the way done. I swear, I wanted to charge back
>> there and show them how to do it right. Seems they also had an
>> abundance of sausage and used it to flavor - green beans. And corn.
>> And spinach. And any other veggie on the line for next week or two.
>> And I thought that memory was buried deep until all those war shows on
>> tv today.
>> Edrena
>
> Fried rabbit on Adak 1975-76. We went through a period of about 3
> months where it seemed like 2 or three times a week we would be having
> fried rabbit. while on Adak in 1975-76.
>
> Best meal - 4th of July 1976 -Bicentennial. The Patrol Squadron flew in
> Big Macs from McDonald's in Anchorage!
>
> Sandi
>

I loved the Air Forces oven fried chicken. I pulled KP once and watched
them make it and it seemed like they rolled it in flour and laid it in a
large cookie sheet like pan with cooking oil in it, and put it in the oven.
Was I wrong. I dont remember them turning the chicken, buit if they didnt
flour wouldnt brown in the oven, would it? I would love to get your ideas
and try it here at home sometime if I could find out.

Dwayne

Dwayne > wrote in message
...
> I loved the Air Forces oven fried chicken. I pulled KP once and
watched
> them make it and it seemed like they rolled it in flour and laid it in
a
> large cookie sheet like pan with cooking oil in it, and put it in the
oven.
> Was I wrong. I dont remember them turning the chicken, buit if they
didnt
> flour wouldnt brown in the oven, would it? I would love to get your
ideas
> and try it here at home sometime if I could find out.

Sounds like "Oven Fried Chicken."

Preheat an oven to 450°F. Place the cups of vegetable oil into a 9"X13"
pan. Dredge chicken in flour/salt/pepper. Lay dredged pieces into oil
and pan into oven. Cook until golden brown.

The Ranger

Replying to myself:

> Ugh. Reminds me of...well, I have several contributions in mind, but I do
> *not* want to rehash them. Speaking of hash, that's some more bad Navy
> memories.

Well, I *can* share the memory of my BEST meal on a ship: Each year, a US
Navy ship gets invited to Winter Harbor, Maine, for their annual Lobster
Fest. My ship at the time, the USS Nicholson (DD-982, decommissioned in
late 2002) was invited there one year. The Supply Officer managed to get us
fresh-out-of-the-water lobsters for our dinner the night we left.

Ohmigod. They didn't ruin it! Simply steamed, served with plenty of melted
butter and a baked potato on the side... I honestly don't think I've had a
lobster dinner to match it ever since.

Bob

On 1 Jun 2005 03:05:04 -0500, Bob wrote:

> Well, I *can* share the memory of my BEST meal on a ship:

At my last unit I worked with a guy who'd done a deployment on USNS
OBSERVATION ISLAND (yes, we Zoomies even managed to worm our way onto Navy
ships). His eyes would *always* light up when talking about the food they
were served during the first few weeks under sail. He especially talked
about the ox tail stew served by the Filipino cook. His contention was
that while generally Air Force bases had the best food, nothing compared to
the first few weeks aboard OBIS.

--

-Jeff B.
zoomie at fastmail dot fm

"AlleyGator" > wrote in message
...
> The Joneses > wrote:
>
>>Ol'Whiskerface is from Chicago. Was it Chanute? I think Elgin AFB is still
>>active. Or Great Lakes Naval Training Station north of Chicago?
>>Edrena
>
> That's it! Chanute. Great Lakes is still active and a lot of people
> I'd just as soon forget about . . . . never mind.
>
> --
> The Doc says my brain waves closely match those of a crazed ferret.
> At least now I have an excuse.
===============

Chanute is one of the bases I was stationed at and they had great food! In
fact, they had some restaurant critics that gave one of the dining halls
(Chow Hall...Mess hall, etc.) a 4-star rating! I don't know that I would've
rated it that high but it was pretty darn good. They served really diverse
foods too. I can recall seeing everything from steak, to rabbit, to
chitterlings. I was overweight the whole time I was there!

Cyndi Chunk

On 2005-06-05, Rick & Cyndi > wrote:

> Chanute is one of the bases I was stationed at and they had great food! In
> fact, they had some restaurant critics that gave one of the dining halls
> (Chow Hall...Mess hall, etc.) a 4-star rating!

When the heck was that?! When I was there (60's), everyone preferred
to squander their limiited pay for pizza-pop, the civilian delivery
trucks that provided just what the name inferred. Did they still have
Marsha Ray and the Ravens? (Marsha ...airmen's club regular with
sufficient drool factor (and talent) to keep the troops from rioting!
;)

nb

"notbob" > wrote in message
...
> On 2005-06-05, Rick & Cyndi > wrote:
>
>> Chanute is one of the bases I was stationed at and they had great food!
>> In
>> fact, they had some restaurant critics that gave one of the dining halls
>> (Chow Hall...Mess hall, etc.) a 4-star rating!
>
> When the heck was that?! When I was there (60's), everyone preferred
> to squander their limiited pay for pizza-pop, the civilian delivery
> trucks that provided just what the name inferred. Did they still have
> Marsha Ray and the Ravens? (Marsha ...airmen's club regular with
> sufficient drool factor (and talent) to keep the troops from rioting!
> ;)
>
> nb
============

Early 80s... nothing but DJs by then... and yes, a lot of people were
throwing away their money on vending machines and delivery pizzas... I
saved so that as soon as I transferred to Scott AFB I was able to buy a
motorcycle.

Cyndi