The food of the navy has changed over its times, and most would agree - from bad to good to best!

As one of the original sailors' training ship Tingira recalled, they received for breakfast '… a steaming bowl of hot cocoa, and a hard sea biscuit'. But every trainee had to be quick for meals, and it almost appeared as if the Navy made a practice of ensuring some missed out as a form of encouragement. As one recalls: "… the call was made 'Come and get it' - and if you were last you didn't get any, and if you were on watch it was gone by the time you came down and you didn't get any until the next meal".

Sometimes on shore things were no better. Max Hinchcliffe recalls that at his first meal at the RAN College 'someone dipped into the honey and brought out a mouse.' However, this didn't cause too much fuss because '…the rest of us were too busy knocking the weevils out of the biscuits'.

There were plenty of grumblings about food in the early days of the RAN. The Member for Corio investigated some navy complaints. He found: … the diet of the men in Yarra and Parramatta consisted of a breakfast of porridge and bread and butter, a lunch of roast meat and potatoes with no other vegetables, and pudding only twice a week, and a supper of bread and butter and tea.

What we now call lunch was then-called dinner. The evening meal was called tea, and the pipe was "hands to tea" at 1600.

Life was a little better if you were an officer - because you paid for better food. VADM Peek recalls how when he joined the RAN in 1928 the Wardroom and Gunroom - although they received one shilling and threepence a day food allowance - fed themselves to a better standard by putting in two shillings out of their five shillings a day pay. How good the mess fare was depended on messman and obviously how much the officers decided to contribute. English pies were a favourite, VADM Peek remembers, and on Sunday night they usually had tinned salmon. John Ross, serving before the war on overseas deployments, recalls that although fresh fruit and vegetables disappeared after a few weeks at sea, fresh bread was always made. Ross also recalls how the addition of money to the food allowance allowed 'three-course lunches' and 'four-course dinners'.

The custom of supplementing your mess food was also observed sometimes on the lower deck. Sailors serving on (an earlier) Tobruk in Hong Kong, for example, would put in a shilling a payday.

Food in WWII of course varied widely from ship to ship and location to location. Nevertheless, many ships' companies did not miss the opportunity to go ashore for some variety when they could. WE Reeve noted that during his time in the Mediterranean: 'Leave ashore meant the usual chores, haircut (much better than the ship's crew) and a good meal was a must. It was quite a relief to have food served that had not been cooked in the Navy style.' Stan Nicholls notes of his time in HMAS Shropshire in the Japanese Pacific war the ship's company had "... boiled eggs for breakfast, tinned sausages and 'redlead' for lunch and camp pie or bully beef for supper. Some variation ... was tinned beans and pork for the action station breakfast followed by frankfurts for lunch and tinned fruit and out 'favourite' bully beef for supper".

Of course, the limitations on the ships' cooks have always been quite harsh. An Oberon submarine's galley, for example, turned out three meals a day for 73 people. The whole thing is about the size of a Fremantle Class patrol boat's galley. The patrol boat's galley is of course about the size of a small suburban bathroom, and full of machinery, ovens, ranges and so on. Yet these cooks manage to turn out magnificent meals: Saturday night at sea often sees two huge roasts with all of the trimmings, cooked to a quality that would rival any restaurant.

In the early sixties when Errol Hunt first joined as a sailor the quality seemed to be high and also consistent - if a little unusual by today's standards. Breakfast, Errol recalls, was often 'train smash', not, as we might think, sausages and mashed potatoes, but a sort of 'tomato au gratin' - tinned tomatoes with cheese on top. Also at breakfast were devilled kidneys, and what was known as 'yellow peril': smoked cod, in fact. Errol adds: 'Eggs were always on the menu, as was bacon'. What were known as 'Tiddy oggies' - a term for pasties - were often served for dinner.

As regards other meals: "Anything with batter around it was in night clothing - something was wrong with it, we said, so they used to disguise it. I remember we usually had duff (a generic navy term for dessert) with lunch. The meals were always wholesome - I never had a complaint, because it was always like Mum used to give me, and she was great cook. Baked dinners were more than the norm; even baked lunches. Evenings always had soup to start. Afternoon tea - there was always a spread for that: a sit-down time with bread and Vegemite; bread and jam, and so on".

"Evening meal at six o'clock we had a 'meat and three veg.' type meal. At 2100 we had kye - slab cocoa - and rock cakes. I can honestly say I never went hungry'.

Errol remembers, understandably, that by the second or third week at sea the meals began to go down in quality. He also noted that if the 'chief victualler and the chief cook got on well the quality was good'. The Victualling Branch (SV rating) was amalgamated with the Stores Naval branch in the early 90s, and cooks became responsible for their own Rations Management Accounting.

PO Megan Payne joined the Navy in January 1979, and went through cookery school training of 18 weeks. She has seen vast changes in Navy food during her time in service, mainly relating to differences in attitude towards people's health. For example, when she first began cooking in the RAN, there was a tendency towards fried and oily food on the menus, and there was one type of potato offered. In those days there were no vegetarian choices, and no choice as to whether you could have cold meats, salads and so on -more healthy alternatives.

Megan thinks the food choice and quality today have improved by a great percentage. She has seen changes brought in such as a higher standard in dietary training; guided by nutritionists. A ship's menu has to be approved by a medical officer to ensure it fits in with dietary requirements. Most training done in conjunction with TAFE Colleges, and there are now taskbooks to be completed after training, so extending it. Navy cooks today often compete with outside chefs in cooking competitions. Working part-time in restaurants is seen as normal further employment whilst ashore and perhaps even desirable to gain wider experience. International cuisine is now part of the Navy's menu - Thai beef is a normal offering in many messdecks. And Strawberry Charlotte - a dessert of sponge fingers soaked in kirsch, molded with an English custard, set and served with a strawberry coulis - is perhaps an indication of the sophistication of today's galley and its highly skilled commanders.

Sources:
Hunt, Lieutenant Errol, RANR. Interview 11-13 May 2001.
Nicholls, Stan. HMAS Shropshire. Sydney: Naval Historical Society of Australia, 1999.
Payne, Petty Officer Megan. Interview 16 May 2001.
Peek, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard, RAN (rtd.) Interview 24 May 2001.
Reeve, W.E. The Scrap Iron Flotilla. Journal of Naval Engineering, 38, 3, 1999.
Spurling, Katherine. "A Strategy for the Lower Deck" in Stevens, D. and Reeve, J. (Eds.) Southern Trident. NSW: Allen and Unwin, 2001. (271)
Ross, WH. Lucky Ross. Western Australia: Hesperian Press, 1994.
75 Years. Film. History of the Royal Australian Navy. Canberra: RAN, 1988.

by LEUT Tom Lewis