Posted on 03/17/2003 12:02:31 AM PST by Timesink
Mar 17, 2003 By George Jahn ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (AP) - Take 110,400 eggs a month and fry, scramble, or boil gently. Add 18,648 strips of bacon. Serve hot - and start worrying about lunch. It's breakfast time aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, and when its 4,300 sailors and airmen belly up to the galleys, the going is hot and heavy for the kitchen crews. But as Master Chief R.C. Jio moves past servers dishing up breakfast, the vegetable dicers, the four giant soup cauldrons and then toward a young sailor kneading dough, she's already thinking about lunch. "This goes on 24 hours a day," said Jio, who feeds the ship's enlisted personnel. "I seldom sleep more than four hours at night." Feeding the crews aboard the U.S. Navy's five aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean and Gulf is a logistical - and culinary - marvel, requiring helicopter and ship replenishing runs and as many as five kitchens to get the food out. There's a bakery on board the USS Kitty Hawk - currently in the Gulf - that supplies around 900 loaves of bread a day. And soda machines spit out drinks at an average rate of more than 5,000 cans a day. Jio, a certified executive chef from Memphis, Tenn., sometimes does the cooking herself in the Roosevelt's galley. But she's normally too busy making sure the salad is fresh, the juice cold, the burgers hot and the chicken tender. Her dedication has paid off. For the second year running, the Navy has voted the Roosevelt the best among all six carriers in the Atlantic Fleet in serving, cooking and presenting food. The effort is welcomed by those with low-profile, but important, jobs on a ship whose image is defined by its glory-hound combat pilots. Good food contributes to good fighting morale, the theory goes. Now at sea for 2 1/2 months, crews on the Roosevelt rarely miss chow time. Beyond needing to eat, it's a chance to sit with friends in a welcome break from 12-plus hour days or nights. The two freezers hold 26 semitrailer loads of meat and other perishables but have to be replenished monthly by supply ships. Hundreds of pallets of fruits and vegetables arrive every two weeks. When fully stocked, the ship carries food worth about $3.5 million, including premium items for birthdays and other special meals, like lobster at $23 a pound. In 30 days, thirsty sailors down 22,000 gallons of orange juice and 8,095 gallons of milk and eat nearly a ton of hamburgers, plus huge quantities of steak, chicken, pasta and other favorites. That doesn't include what's eaten by the 1,200 officers and noncommissioned officers, who have their own galleys. Aboard the Kitty Hawk, the officers definitely get better fare. In the two wardrooms set aside for their meals and off limits to enlisted sailors, pilots and other officers can order a cheeseburger or select from daily specials such as veal parmigiano, boiled crab claws and corned beef. Tuna salad, egg salad and cut fresh vegetables are staples. For officers there's also a special menu on Sundays: Brunch of scrambled eggs, french toast and fresh waffles with maple or strawberry syrup. Dinner one recent Sunday was grilled lobster tails with melted butter. For the enlisted ranks on the Roosevelt, food is available nearly nonstop at two galleys - shutting down from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. No wonder Jio has little time off the job. "I taste the food," she said. "I help prepare the food. I supervise how the food's supposed to look, smell, taste; how it's presented - even the right utensil to serve the food." Dozens work in the kitchens, where the demands are exhausting. "I don't like doing carrots, they're very time-consuming," said Seaman Javier Duran, 23, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., as he cuts peppers into strips for the 21-item lunchtime veggie trays. After 11 hours of chopping, he said, "You get a sore arm once in a while." Old salts - who remember past chow times of soyaburgers - praise the kitchen crew's efforts. But you can't please them all. "The food is reasonably good," Airman Daniel Alvarez, 30, of Tyler, Texas, said as he carried his tray from his table. "But what I miss is a big, juicy steak, cooked the way I liked it - with garlic, cooked over mesquite wood." AP-ES-03-17-03 0238ESTRecipe for Breakfast Aboard a Carrier: Take 22,000 Gallons of Orange Juice...
Associated Press Writer
Definitely NOT Saddam's fighting forces...who may be lucky to get a little nibble of bread once in a while (or maybe some of that yummy "acorn milk" the North Koreans are working on).
What? No! I don't believe it!
Yeah, but officers have to pay for their meals. The enlisted don't.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
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Carlo, do you have any recipes that will serve 4,300 hungry sailors?
And the officers get paid close to double what the enlisted do and if you had to pay for your meals you expect it to be of better quality. The food for the enlisted guys would be considered slop at any resturant in the States sorry to say.
Terp, a retired Chief Petty Officer USN
Give me flat bread (because the yeast supply ran out two weeks ago) and canned peanut butter (stirred well to mix the oil back in) any day! < /sarcasm >
Fast Attack bump!
Cry me a river, Chief. I've had a meal or two in the Goat Locker in my time. You CPOs don't do so bad. And as far as money went I would have traded my salary as an O-1 right out of school with a CPO any day of the week and come out ahead.
In 1984 or so I had the opportunity to ride the USS Whidbey Island for a month as part of a shock test. We ate in the crews mess and the food was great. Of course there were some crew members complaining but I thought the food was outstanding. (I gained weight on that trip)
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