Food was poor when I first joined the RAF, though plenty of choice - fried sausages, grilled sausages, baked sausages and if we were lucky, braised sausages in gravy. All on the same day.
I also remember breakfast where there was no fresh milk, but evaporated milk that had been diluted with water to go on your cereals. Yuck!
Exercises were always fun with meals in metal cans that were brought in hotboxes. Always pot luck as to what you were going to get. And we would get a big block of cheese wrapped in grease proof paper, where we had to cut all the dried edges off.
However, in the early 80s there was a step change. Cooks who took great pride in their work and high quality offerings. It was a pleasure going to the mess after that.