Evening star., 1947-01-21

this country. Pressed into service by
Brig. Gen. Milton o. Boone, the
Army's Quartermaster in Europe,
MARKHAM is now ON the other side
trying to teach Army mess sergeants
how to prepare attractive, palatable
food. He plans to be gone only
three months. This establishes him
as the worlds leading optimist. 1t
will take him a couple of years
longer than three months just to
unteach Army cooks what they
have taught themselves about how
to prepare unattractive, unpalat-
able food.
Only ignorance of the situation
could have led George MARKHAM to
accept the task he has undertaken.
He undoubtedly left for Europe un-
der the fantastic impression that
Army cooks are human beings. They
amt. At first glance they look like
human beings, being equipped with
hair, eyes, teeth, ears, legs, arms.
and other paraphernalia of humans.
But get to know one, eat the food
that he concerts, and any man with
enough gumption to raise on four
aces will realize that he is in the
presence of something that doesn't
quite belong to this world.
Give a moronic monkey pot OF
boiling water and a potato and the
chances are that he will boil you a
potato that you can eat. Give the
same thing to an Army cook and
he'll produce something that tears
your soul asunder. Turn him loose
in the field of the higher culinary
arts, such as fried eggs, and he will
turn you out one that you couldn't
possibly eat, but which would come
in handy in case you had lost your
brass knuckles. Many man has
been felled by a sunny-side-up egg
mistreated by an Army cook.
This is not to disparage the men
tality of Army cooks or their ability
They can cook for themselves all
right. I have spent enough time on
KIP to know how beautifully they
cook the food they are going to eat
They just don't want to cook for a
lot of soldiers. Put an apron on a
soldier and he says to himself,
"Okay, I'll show 'em." This Is per-
fectly natural. No infantry soldier
likes to march Is miles day, and
an artilleryman doesn't like to dig
emplacements, but they have to-
They can't help it, but cook can
help from cooking. No one can make
a cook cook any better than he
wants to cook.
Like Color Schemes.
Even if George MARKHAM accom-
plished the impossible and taught
Army cooks how to prepare meals
worthy of the taste buds of a gour-
met, he still would face the monu-
mental job of teaching them to serve
the victuals in an attractive manner
Army cooks have their deep-seated
notions on what food looks nice on
another food.
For some reason they like the
color scheme of beets mixed with
chocolate custard, chilli con carne in
termingled with semimelted straw
berry ice cream, and corn flakes
topped with two or three of the
manhole covers which go by the
name of pancakes in the Army. An
old Army cook, after he has "ar-
ranged" these dishes on your mess
kit, plate, or platter, will step back
survey the whole, and top it off with
ladle of hot imitation maple syrup
and, in the Pacific theater at least,
the rainbow scheme was completed
by the soft yellow glow given off by
the atabrine tablets which had been
thrown in a soldiers mess gear as
he waited in the chow line.
Some day before I die, I want to
visit the school the Army runs fo1
cooks. The men who teach Army
cooks how to cook must be straight
from Mars. no holds barred.
distributed by McNaught Syndicate. 1nc.)