"atec 7 7" wrote
>> "cshenk" > wrote:

> Sad isn't it even old army dogs can see shelly is pulling it ?

Hey just curious, because i know little of Army, but at an established camp,
how many cooks would they have for 400? I assume they also have the junior
guys do a time of what Navy calls 'Mess Deck or Mess cranking' duty. Those
folks handle the dishes, much of the serving line, storage breakout (mostly
as a real CS will be there too directing it), and some of the basic food
preps. I'm not talking in the field with MRE's, but where they actually
cook. Just curious.

The Navy BTW has gotten away recently from having multiple cooking kitchens
on the smaller ships and gone what is called 'open mess' meaing one master
cook spot who then sends the food off to the main enlisted galley, CPO mess,
and officers mess. The Officers mess part was still in transition when I
retired. The CPO mess equipment was used as an ancillary kitchen for the
main food needs as I left the Essex. Many feared it would reduce the CPO
mess quality (I was a CPO) but having been in an 'open mess' ship before, I
assured folks it would be ok and it was. I know the CS Senior was happy to
have me chime in with experience of such.

It allowed a person who truely excelled at something, to hit all the various
'messes'. For example, it *seems* to me Sheldon was a really good pastry
and bread chef. He'd in the more recent era have done that all the time for
400 people with 2 general duty guys 'mess deck assistants' to assist him.

On the ESSEX, we had a team of 5 in the bake shop who handled upwards of
3,000 people a day. I remember battling with SURFOR to get $$$ to send them
to pastry chef schools. Just 1 or 2, but they could train the rest on
fancier stuff. The ROI was quite high as we didnt have to purchase some of
the premade things. 1 pastry chef well trained cost 12,000$ from Sasebo
Japan and equaled savings over premade of 39,500$ per year and you'd get a
clear 2 years of savings. That same one would in turn often teach the next
set well enough you didnt have to send another 2 years later.

Navy cooks are generally pretty good. If i rag on Sheldon at times, it's
when he fakes things out or makes them horrid hot dogs. He's probably a
relatively able sort in his specialty.