Surfing silent service menu

GRUB’S UP: Celebrity chefs Curtis Stone, left, and Ben O’Donoghue, right, with ABCKSM Nathan Rogers and a seafood masterpiece.

Photo: ABPH Jarrad Oliffe

By Michael Brooke

The work of the ‘Silent Service’ is often ‘Top Secret’ but the culinary secrets of the cooks on Collins class submarines will become public knowledge when the Surfing The Menu cooking show screens on the ABC in January next year.

Surfing the Menu is hosted by two happy-go-lucky world class chefs, Ben O’Donoghue and Curtis Stone, who in Episode IV of Series II cook up a storm in the galley of HMAS Dechaineux (LCDR Phil Stanford).

The show opens in comical style with HMAS Rankin (LCDR Gary Lawton) apprehending Ben and Curtis in their boat for fishing in the restricted waters of Cockburn Sound.

Their punishment is sharing the secrets of their special recipes with the cook and it is in the galley of Dechaineux that they meet AB Cook Nathan Rogers, who introduces them to the confined space of a Collins class submarine’s galley.

ABCK Rogers, 26, who has been a cook in the Navy for five years, said he picked up a few good ideas from Ben and Curtis who prepared a delicious pasta for crew members.

Two of the crew, LEUT Michael Jacobson and LS Brad Cooper, are filmed rolling their eyes and moaning in ecstasy as they feast on the pasta.

Although Ben and Curtis are world class chefs, ABCK Rogers said he taught them the secret of cooking in the ‘Silent Service’ – absolute silence!

“They are fantastic cooks but they made too much noise, which you can’t do in a submarine because enemy warships would find us,” he said.

Another secret is knowing that there are no secrets among the crew on a submarine. ABCK Rogers said he cannot cook any surprise meals for the crew because the smell from the oven wafts through the confined space of the submarine.

“Everybody loves the food I cook because the smell travels the length of the submarine which has all the crew ravenous by dinner time,” he said with a chuckle.

ABCK Rogers said it’s not often that the public get to see operations inside a submarine and that he hopes the show encourages not just cooks, but more people to join the Navy.

The producer of Surfing The Menu, Alun Bartsch, said both Ben and Curtis were impressed with the standard of Navy cooking, especially the ‘pizza subs’ made in the confined spaces of a Collins class submarine.

“There’s nothing sub-standard or sub-normal about submarine food,” he quipped while seemingly in a state of ‘sub-delirium’ after filming for six hours in the galley of Dechaineux.

The show not only promotes the Navy but provided many sailors with a free feed, because the closing scene features the two chefs dishing up BBQ lobster and octopus chili salad from the Ammo Wharf at Garden Island.

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