During the dim and distant days of TACEVAL when centralised messing was instigated it was a commonly held view amongst officers and SNCOs that the food was top notch. We didn't mind going to the Airmen's Mess to eat but it did seem to me that the airmen minded.
I well remember one exercise at Wittering. I was sitting at a table on my own when I was approached by one lad with a heaped dinner plate (like, it had beans running off the side it was so heaped). He was all cheerful when he grunted "Anyone 'ere mate?", sat down and proceeded to scoop the contents of his plate into his frame in much the same fashion as a mechanical digger clawing clay from the side of a brick pit. He then seemed to note that I was not a fellow airman (we were all in NBC kit, sans respirators) when he spied my bit of green tape saying "Sqn Ldr xx" hidden in the folds of the NBC jacket.
At that point his head went down closer to the mountain of mash and a protective arm went around the top of the plate as if to guard it from my attentions.
It passed an amusing 5 minutes in what was a fairly turgid exercise.
Vive la difference!