On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 12:10:59 -0400, "cshenk" > wrote:

>"brooklyn1" wrote
>
>> There's nothing difficult/unbelieveable about cooking a meal for 144.
>> I used to cook for 400+... three meals a day... often all on my own,
>> including all baked goods from scratch, including breads... typically
>> two main courses, 3-4 different salads, 2-3 appetizers, 1-2 soups, 3-4
>> sides, 2 desserts, plus beverages.
>
>Sorry Sheldon but the crew compliment CS (used to be MS) for a ship of 400
>is 12 plus the attendant junior folks from other divisions serving their
>'mess deck' time. You'd have never done all 3 meals by yourself. You'd
>never have done any of them yourself. You very well however might have done
>all the bread portion of a day's meals yourself, or all the desserts
>yourself (a good portion of which are pre-made today). You may have done
>much of the soups (many are just open a can and heat today).
>
>For the rest, he's right that a lot of the breads are totally from scratch
>on a US Navy ship. Athough they have many canned goods, each ship varies a
>bit in how much is made in true scratch style as well as how closely they
>follow the 'recipe cards'. The rule of thumb is smaller ships (300-400
>crew) have better food because they don't have to cook for as many at once.
>They are less prone to following 'recipe cards to the letter'.
>
>The food is generally pretty good, with a few disaster days mixed with the
>sublime where everything looks outstanding and you can't choose between'em!
>Sheldon has given a fairly accurate view of what would be served, just not
>the number of folks involved in it. Take out the senior folks and FSO, and
>you'd have about 6 per meal. In port, you'd have fewer on weekends but be
>feeding just the duty section (generally 1/6th of the crew now-a-days but
>may be 1/8th). You'd also have lots of those folks who are doing their
>galley duty to help out.
>

You've never been aboard a ship underway... perhaps a boat but never a
ship. Larger ships that spent much of their time in port received
most of their meals already prepared from on shore galleys.

I served aboard a Sherman class tin can, typical crew of 400. There
would be only 3 cooks aboard for the enlisted men and CPOs, officers
had their own pineapples. At sea (which was 90% of the time) cooks
worked 24 hour shifts, in port 48 hr shifts or longer for holidays or
long weekends, cooks worked out their own shifts among themselves
depending on who could make it home and back, I always workd x-mas, no
one cared, not even the old man, so long as meals were prepared on
time. Mess cooks didn't cook, they cleaned, did deep sink duty,
peeled veggies, and assisted the JOD (Jack of the Dust). War ships
have very limited storage space for foods, there was very limited
reefer space for baked goods... only baked goods were packaged sliced
bread for maybe three days out of port, then all bread was baked from
scratch. There was no freezer space for ice cream, the cook made ice
cream in huge batches from scratch, all cakes, pies, cookies were made
from scratch. There was no canned soups, there'd be no space to store
cans that were mostly water... there was bouillion powder but soups
were made entirely from scratch, even veggies were mostly dehys.
The galley on a tin can is small, there was never more than one cook
on duty at a time. they'd only be in each others way. Baking was very
easy to accomplish between cooking, and cooking between baking... when
one knows how... obviously you don't cook[period]