Evening star., 1941-08-22

AaSas''' overcome their
meLemors. natural aversion
to almost anything that is good for
them in the way of foodstuffs. SO
From the clay hills of Georgia,
the bottom lands Of Mississippi, the
mountains of North Carolina and
Tennessee and the canebrakes Of
Alabama, the boys pour in here with
the same scorn for vitamins that
their great -grandpappies had for
the Yankees.
For days and sometimes weeks,
the recruits subsist on a diet ot
bread, meat, potatoes and memories
memories of the fried pork chops,
fried ham, fried everything else,
grits. white meat and boiled-to-
death-in in salt pork turnip green's and
black-eyed peas they had at hons.
This rebellion OF the Southern
epicures against what many Of them
term "new-fangled dishes was ex-
planned TO me by Chief Commissary
Steward John Hunt, who is feeding
some 5000 of the recruits in the
Navy's biggest mess hall.
| 1T nearly runs man crazy 10
see them turn up their noses at the
best food money can buy" Chief
/ Commissary Steward Hunt said.
III tell you what you do. There
is new batch of recruits in TODAY,
so you go have noon dinner with
| them and see for yourself why I
sometimes have complaints from
drill officers that their men aren't
getting enough to eat and are too
weak to drill"
At noon I fell in mess line with
bunch Of new boys and I saw
what he meant We had fresh clam
chowder and only about l out of 10
would even taste it. They ate the
pan roast of beef and mashed DO
tatoes, but scorned the vegetable
gravy as they also scorned the fresh
carrots and peas, the buttered
squash, the mixed green salad and
the new beets. They ate the cherry
cobbler and two or three pieces of
bread and butter along with it to
fill them up.
I asked a dozen Of the recruits
why they didn't eat more Of their
food. Tupelo, Miss. said 1t was a
pretty sorry meal when they didn't
/ give you rice or grits along with your
/ potatoes. RavenScrofC. Tenn. want
| ed to know how could fellow eat
without some sort of hot bread 10
stick to his ribs, and CataWba, n. c.,
said he never had tasted vegetables
/ that weren't cooked with a ham
hook or salt pork, and that he wasn't
going to start now. A Louisiana boy
said he missed molasses with a meal.
There amt no dessert like stirring
some butter into some molasses and
then spreading it on a hot biscuit.
Wonder if they ever have that in
the Navy?"
Chief CommiSSarv Steward Hunt
was not dismayed when I relayed
my findings to him.
They won't starve, don't worry"
he said I'm Cracker myself, and
l was the same way about food when
I came in the Navy 19 years ago.
They'll start eating everything in
sight in few weeks, and if you
don't believe it, Ill let you talk to
some of the boys who have been
here couple of months"
Mama got mad at me when !
went home on my first leave" big
sailor told me. For my first dinner
she had cooked everything that she
knew I liked. She had fried pork
chops, gritS fried sweet potatoes,
turnip green's, canned corn and all
| the other stuff 1 had been eating for
years. I tried to eat it all, but 1t
didn't taste right. Mama said the
Navy had taken my appetite, and I
didn't tell her any different. But
she couldn't understand why had
picked up 20 pounds in weight"
X
I talked to three other boys who
had been in long enough to learn to
like the well-balanced diet and they
had gained an average of % pounds.
And each had added more than an
inch in height in less than four
months in the Navy.
Chief. Commissary Steward Hunt
intimated that there was a good
chance that the influence of the
Navy diet might eventually change
the eating habits of the South.
AS an old Georgia gourmet, who
teethed on a piece of salt pork. this
was alarming news to me. Is it not
enough, subs, that you take away our
men without taking away our right
to eat as wrongly as we please?
Distributed by McNaught Syndicate. Inc)
Men From 10 Nations