hotels copy army meal A few M beeks ago the quartermaster general s department faithful to its complicated task of supplying everything from shoes to sugar to a rapidly forming army of more than one million men telegraphed an appeal to 58 leading hotel proprietors throughout the country asking the loan of 8 chefs and expert cooks to teach the science of to the kitchens of our 10 new cantonments canton ments now the browned in the oven old mess sergeants of our regular army cooking schools of which four have flourished for many years are willing and anxious to sit at the feet of the capable wizards who have fed fifth avenue and tremont street but so great 13 the faith of the mess sergeant in the manual for army cooks issue of 1910 that they pause reflectively in theli arranged pantries and allow quite unofficially that maybe a few of those fancy chefs will go back to their hotels with one or two choice recipes well worth trying on the favored fellow ohof always gets by the plush rope and calls the head waiter by his first name As a matter of fact M famous chef of the hotel mcalpin new york was lent a while back in order to gain sufficient knowledge of army cookery to instruct national guard katch ns in various new york armories spent two days at washington barbacki bar where he studied the cuisine for enlisted men he went ack to bew york ellk his observations together with a copy of the months menu the das of war hardtack and spanish war embalmer embalmed ed beef Is long gone emergency rations ot course the soldier must carry to tide him over bad where the enemy fire Is hotter thin the bake ovens behind the line but tor feeding his armies in barrack and trench uncle sam has become a domestic scientist who thinks in terms of nutritive values and a psychologist who realizes that the stomachs digestive juices will not unless the palate telegraphs its approval to the brain in the to come when our american rolling kitchens are perched reasonably out of range on a scarred field somewhere in prince and our boys from home are emptying ot a generous helping of el rancho stew they may lift their bulletproof helmets to the printed consoler comforter and friend which haa followed them to the trench esthe manual for army cooks issue of 1010 As n matter of history the present volume of official recipes Is about a dozen years old it haa been collected from many sources by many also men adorned with uniforms and backed by general orders but its choicest and best originated in the instinctive inimitable methods of aunt diana who concocted her champion waffles by jes in fact a large majority of the good and fine points in uncle sams dally menu for his cammies Is due to an old commissary sergeant of fort alley nia name was dunne and he was one of those bom to the griddle who haa the same advantage over tho ordinary aspirant to kitchen honors that kubelck bad from birth over the little girl next door be was not a man of education in the or auary acceptance of the word but he ws a farat a te fi class army cook on scraps of wrapping paper or old bills he kept a copy of every recipe he had ever tried these were edited by colonel hoi brook then in command at fort alley and published in a little book called methods of handling army rations which was developed into the manual for army cooks the textbook in the army schools for cooks and bakers started in 1900 by general sharpe now quartermaster general there Is a legend to the effect that there are several amusing musical diatribes against the army food but questioning of officers and men at the washington barracks school does not reveal them one sergeant one of the three noncoms non coms in line for their commissions said that when the food was bad the men got the growl and wouldn t sing at all and when it was good they felt fine and sang the prettiest songs they knew it Is rather heartening to think that the men can bae the same food in the field as they do in barracks this Is accomplished by the bakeries which are portable easily taken down and set up and by the very remarkable rolling kitchens which cook a meal as the army marches having lunch or supper ready when the order comes to pitch camp all of these kitchens have stoves for burning oil and also arrange merits for the use of coal or wood one model of which the geem ment has ordered a great many has two double boilers where oatmeal for instance may be cooked as the big stove on wheels trails on supply wagon or truck also there are direct heat boilers where coffee may be made or one of the many delicious stews the familiar irish the savory LI rancho containing everything eatable on a ranch or the very delectable american stew invented on the mexican border and the first favorite at cammies Sam mies table there Is also an oven where a roast may be brought to a turn and as a surprise to you a big smooth plate where flapjacks flap jacks come to life one kitchen will feed men a war strength company and it will need three men to operate it trailing each kitchen Is a fireless cooker with four large compartments these are very convenient in that th tin receptacles fit cither the stoe or the department and can be transferred without the bother of emptying of food from one vessel to another there are now four regular schools for army cooks at fort sam houston tex fort alley kan monterey cal and washington barracks the cantonments canton ments increased these schools many told it takes about four months of rigorous instruction st to make a first class army cook but under the intensive method the cantonment cooki will be educated in half this time there arc many very delicious and exceedingly efficient recipes in the manual for army cooks and uncle sim gives his boys all three of their excellent meala tor an average of 40 cents a day if the economy of 40 cents a kitchen could be brought into all american homes we would hear little of food conservation for the utilization of every edible molecule Is nothing short of man clous aa is the system of accounting for every ingredient that comes out of the storeroom wallace iraln in Lou lauVe courier journal 4 1 JS rsm 5 SM