The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-12-01
Hotels Copy Army Meals

A few weeks ago the Quartermaster generals
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 SO leading hotel
proprietors throughout the country asking the
loan of 3,S40 chefs and expert cooks to teach the
science of gastronomics to the kitchens of our 16
new cantonments.
Now, the Drowned in the oven' old mess SER
geants of our regular army cooking schools-ot
which four have fourished for many years-are
willing and anxious to sit at the feet of the capa.
BILE wizards who have fed Fifth avenue and Ire
mont street; but so great is the faith of the
mess sergeant In the Manual for Army Cooks"
Issue of 1915, that they pause refectively In their
scientifically arranged pantries and allow-quite
unoficially-that maybe a few of those fancy
chefs will go back to their hotels with one or
two choice recipes we'll worth trying on the ia
vored fellow who always gets by the plush rope
and calls the head waiter by his first name.
AS a matter of fact, NJ. Panchard, famous chef
of the Hotel McAlpin, New York, was Tent" a
while back in order to gain sufficient knowledge
Of army cookery TO instruct National Guard kitch-
ems in various New York armories. Panchard
spent two days at Washington barracks, where he
studied the cuisine for enlisted men; he went
back to New York with his observations, together
with a copy of the months menu.
The day of Civil war bareback and Spanish war
embalmed beef is "long gone" Emergency ra-
lions. of course, the soldier must carry to tide him
over Duu SlluuIlOHS WueT lle SlSlhy mO &c hOt'SA
than the bake ovens behind the line. But for
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 stoInach's digestive juices
will not respond unless the palate telegraphs its
approval to the brain.
In the months TO come, when our American
rolling kitchens" are perched reasonably out or
range on a SCARED field somewhere in France and
our boys from home are emptying their plates OF
a generous helping of eel Rancho" stew, they
may lift their bullet-proof helmets to the printed
CONSIDER, comforter and friend which has followed
them TO the trenches-the Manual for Army
Cooks" issue of 1916.
AS a matter of history, the present volume OF
official recipes is about a dozen years old. 1t has
been collected from many sources by many wise
men adorned with uniforms and backed by gen.
eral orders; but Its choicest and best originated
I'm the instructive inImitable methods OF Aunt
Diana, who concocted her champion wafies by
"jes' tastin'."
In fact, a large majority Of the good and fine
points in Uncle Sans daily menu for his Sammies
IS due to an old commissary sergeant of Fort
Riley. His name was Dunno, and he was one or
those "born to the griddle," who has the same
advantage over the ordinary ~aspirant to kitchen
honors that Kubelik had from birth over the lit
tie girl next door.
He was not a man of education In the or
binary acceptance of the word. but he was a nrst-