"Mark Thorson" wrote
> cshenk wrote:

>> Skipping off Sheldon for the moment, Navy chow is actually normally
>> pretty
>> good. I've had worse in fancy places for 20$ a plate, and often had Navy
>> chow I'd have been quite happy to pay 12$ for (being a bit cheap, had
>> they
>> charged 20$ I'd have sniffed but not been unhappy).
>> I've had Navy chow so good, it would have been a happy face paying 40$.
>
> They say an army travels on its stomach, a lesson which
> seems to have been learned among the navies of the world.
> Remember, Jacques Pepin started his career in the French
> navy. He even prepared food for Charles de Gaulle, though
> I don't know if that ever was his regular duty.

Grin, modern Navy chow is fairly simple stuff but well done in general.
Smaller ships better on average than larger because they arent trying to
cook for 3,000 at a shot. You won't see 'flaming cherry jubilee' and such,
but you'll have a good meal of simple home cooking almost always with some
being well past 'good' into the sublime levels. If there's one thing they
really excel at almost everywhere, it's 'cooks soup' which is a scratch made
soup of anything and everything you can think of based on the mind of the
cook at the time when he/she tossed it in. There ws a guy with a vietnamese
cookery background on one of my shis who made the most fantastic little
'pepper pot soup' (best name I can come up with and one he used). It had
little fried sausage balls, cabbage, udon, daikon, carrots, onions, garlic,
in a sort of tomato pork broth with added spices tht felt right to him at
the time and ranged from cardamon to curry blends to chiles.

Smacking lips. They got some good stuff. T'aint fancy often, just the real
thing when it comes to good eats.