Don Anderson - Roast meat and vegetables

Running time
2 min 26 sec
Date made
Department of Veterans' Affairs


Now, in the Napier, the galley, the kitchen, was about the size of, no it'd be less than in size than that. It was a great big oil fuelled range that they started cooking the roast early, early in the morning for lunchtime and as soon as the meat was burnt on the outside, it was taken out and put in a hot locker and another lot put in the stove because that stove was preparing food for nearly 300 men, right, conditions weren't too good.

At the back of this big stove there was a big water tank and that was used for receptacle, heating up the vegetable tins. So, the tinned vegetables were hung in there in string bags in the hot water and when they were taken out and opened up, they had hot vegetables. We also had dehydrated potatoes and that was the start of dehydration of that sort of food and it tasted like nothing on earth. It sure didn't taste like potatoes. And back to the Napier, you got your supply of meat.

You got your supply, couple of cans of vegetables. You took them back to the mess deck and if you were on duty you put on the food and you cut the roast. The first two slices were burnt. The next two slices or so were alright. The next ones or the rest of it was raw because they had to cook it in such a short time. The cooks did a marvellous job.

Was this page helpful?