I was with 99 Sqn in the early 1960's and have a couple of catering (lunchbox) memories.
The Best Lunch Box
Best lunch box I remember was that supplied from Embakasi in Nairobi in Sept 1961.
With some sort of trouble brewing in the Gulf it was decided the Army brigade based in East Africa would be transferred to Bahrain, a long Britannia flog of many hours - Embakasi - Khormaksar - Bahrain and then back again to do the same trip several times over to get the brigade to up Bahrain.
Anyway on the first trip we left Embakasi, dished out the lunch boxes to the squaddies in the back and then heard mutterings of complaint. When asked what was wrong, the general consensus was that the 'jam' tasted salty. It turned out each lunch box contained a small pot of something to be spread on the rolls or biscuits or whatever and the contents were very salty.
Investigation quickly showed the pots were in fact pots of Caviar, real Caviar and not
ersatz Lumpfish roe. This was not immediately obvious to the troops so we collected any unopened and unwanted pots and put them aside for later crew use.
Their loss was our gain!
Later, but not with 99 sqn - the worst lunchbox ever - for me anyway.
Lunchbox as provided by civilian caterers at Khartoum in 1979.
A couple of ropey rolls and two dead bananas - so awful I had to photograph it for posterity. Mind you it couldn't have been too bad because ISTR none of the crew had to be hospitalised afterwards!