Honkers
 

Can you remember any good Honkers recipes.

42 Sqn Crew 9 Circa 1978-79

3 tins of compo stewing steak
1 tin carrots
1 tin peas
1 tin of sardines in brine
2 packets of salt and vinegar crisps
Chopped pears
Curry powder
Hot stuff in a bottle bought from the ethnic food isle in the commissary NAS Keflavik/ Lajes
1 tea bag
Dust, crumbs and stuff from the bottom of the rations bag
Splash of brown sauce

Put the lot in a pan (we had a specially made honkers pot which just fitted into Nim Galley oven)

Leave until bubbling

Serve in a foil tin and eat with a plastic spoon. Preferably at 300ft at night in a Sea State 9

HAPPY DAYS

What? Just the one tea bag?

You chaps really knew how to live.....??

A bit light on ingredients there phoney, but what you mean is that everything went in. And damned good it was too. Preparing it while the aircraft was manoeuvring at 500ft in bad weather. Happy days. :hmm:
It was always good to have the compo sausages chopped and then crisped in the oven on separate trays, and then added to the stew.
It was always the one thing that made 8hr Tapestries just about bearable.

Had one with a "Black Forest Gateaux" mouse in it once, the black cherries gave it a rather unique flavour!

Also had one, made by a non-cooking AEOp, who didn't know what a clove of garlic was, he assumed that it was a whole garlic. The 2 "cloves" he added to the honkers meant that nobody wanted to get near the crew for the next few days!

"Serve in a foil tin"?

What's wrong with the sick bag then? Upset many a pax after a phoney huey!

And don't forget four + tins of Mulligatawny Soup (to make it a bit more 'liquid' for serving in the old HMG paper cups) plus the tins of potatoes (new, ready peeled) to ensure just as you were tipping the cup up to get the last of the Honkers from the bottom the potato would 'unstick' and slide rapidly into mouth, together with tidal wave of remaining liquid.

(I'd like to say the only real Honkers was served from Shackleton galleys - but then that's what the ex Sunderland crews said about their version. Each to their own!!

Pertama

Had one made with reindeer steak from Andoya - unfortunately the tinned "potatos" were actually fish balls (and a very big fish it must have been....).

Oh happy days!!

Try that on an E-3D and the FC's and AT's will think you've lost your marbles. Great, great days.
The secret of a good Honkers, was not so much what went in it, as what didn't go in it!!

Regards
The swinging Monkey

Reynoldsno1

Fell for that once myself.

I bought the rations at a shop in Andoya.

Lead wet did the cooking ....at nite.

Handed me a Silver Tray with what was thought to be sausage beans and new potatoes whilst I operated the kit (In the Dark).

Puke ...I certainly did.

Not only was it fish, but very strong flavoured fish.

Do the guys up North still carry a home made wooden box with all the rations that were liberated the last time the crew were scrambled on SAR? Frey Bentos S+K pudding in a tin. Always a favourite at the bottom of the box.

I am convinced that is the reason Nimrod crews were so healthy - they were constantly bombarded with strains of bacteria that only grew in the rations box. They would have been banned under the Geneva Convention.

DCS added to any Honkers went down well. If they were not used in the stew then a race was held on the bus post flight between the a/c and ops to see who could finish off a whole one.

Anita

Yep, still the same. The locker room all the rations bags are kept in smells like a cross betwen the spice souk in Muttrah and the local municipal tip ! When rummaging for a packet of biscuits to steal to make the SAR nites pass quicker it is advisable to hold ones breath before opening any containers and partially closing the eyes in case you disturb a family of flies. Dry SAR rations have mahoosive tins of curry / chilli nowadays vice the old galley oven fires generating fray bentos pies. Currently irish stew, peas, cup-a-soups and evaporated cream add to the mix somewhat ..... yum !

Back when I was an air-defending 8-prop it was everything in the Q tin. One time there were no trays so the circular light cover from the radar tent was used as a communal bowl. Obviously for H&S reasons the F/E had to eat last....