I think you have to earn food to really enjoy it.

Item 3 on a Harrier field deployment menu...

1. Sausages

2. No sausages

3. All-in-Stew. (may contain sausages)

wets

Following a very good dinner in (one of) the Changi mess we'd take ourselves off to Changi Village for satays/prawn fried rice and beer at Lim's stall.
Hungry little sods we were in our twenties!

Us: "Hey, Lim, why are you eating with a spoon?"
Lim: "Businessman, no time for chopsticks!" :p

Digressing slightly; some of the best food I had in my twenties was in the Merchant Navy (Elders & Fyffes).

Tengah Airmans Mess
 

....I will go with that food at Tengah was always good, and further to that I would challenge anyone to serve me a Nasi Goring that would be better that that prepared by the local chefs who covered the weekend detail, I have been trying since the mid sixties to find one and no luck to this date, any offers?:ok:

Best JR Mess, Kinloss and Wattisham,(and I hated my posting to Wattisham). Also, a very honourable mention to the soup and sandwich kitchen at Stanley 82-83.

Best RAF cooked meals were at the Williamson site in Belize during an exercise in 84. We had the RAF cooks over from the APC mess, and the food was outstanding.

I really didn't like the baby heads or the compo sausages. I would eat the sausages, but I only partially ate a baby's head once, never again!

I've seen "baby heads" mentioned a couple of times.

What may I ask are "baby heads" ?

Best: Full fry-up in the middle of the night served up by Mobile catering Sqn at Widiwaki airfield Ascension, prior to 26 to 28-hr flights during Op Corporate. During flt, it was pot noodles and dry rations though Andy did rustle up a steak.

Worst: Boiled chicken with some turmeric added to masquerade it as a curry with boiled rice.Served only once at RAF Hullavington because a teach-in of the kitchen staff was conducted!

I think they were the tasty Steak and kidney puddings with soft pastry

I seem to recall Stanmore mess being very good in the middle 80's.

First taste of Venison was from a Scottish chef at Spadeadam who turned a deer we had hit with a sherpa into a nice stew.

RequestPidgeons, concur re the view, and I had the great fortune to have an identical view from my suite at the other end of the floor. You watch, now the word is out they will sell it! :D :ugh:

The kidney, in Steak and Kidney pudding. Horrible stuff, straight from Satan's bum in my opinion.

Baby's heads came from the old tinned 10 man rat packs and were steak and kidney puddings which when you cooked them the pastry looked like a babys head.

They weren't so bad when they were done in a field kitchen but if you heated them in a mess tin they were barfing.

What I want to know is where all the chicken curry in a tin rat packs went. Menu C?

Never saw one ever.

Did like the fruit cake though. Found a 20 year old tin of it last year and it was still as good as I remembered it.

Nasi Goreng - I'm OK - Dutch/Indonnesian neighbours. Makes up for not being able to get an "Indian" in our part of France

It wasn't pastry as such, it was suet they were wrapped in, Frey Bentos do them in small or large tins and microwave in about 30 seconds.

See

Baxters - Fray Bentos 'Classic' Steak and Kidney Pudding


..

Cannot get the puddings but local supermarket (Super-U) does FB S&K pies in a tin

Ye Gods, it was probably 30 years old before it was issued to you.

Pretty good in the RAF Club :)

Best:
Watton OM (concur with thing in Post #3) … Mr Thurston used to drum up some lovely meals, to order. Especially when the PMC came in from the disused airfield with assorted "fur and feather", and Mr T would drum up a Game Casserole for the tiny living-in community.
And the trays of hot food delivered at around 1830 during Happy Hour, to ensure you could sustain your drinking for another 4 hours of so.

Tengah OM for the Nasi Goreng and an endless variety of delicious meals. And the steak sarnies at lunchtime on the terrace.

Worst:
Uxbridge OM, especially the soup. Monday was Spring Vegetable, and then through the week it was 'augmented' by assorted leftovers. By Thursday you could taste the remains of the week's gravy. And the ability to serve inappropriate vegetables: Plaice fillets with Roast Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts just seemed so wrong. (And the inability to get breakfast orders correct, although the morning rush to MoD did put them under a lot of pressure, so I guess they get a marginal pass on that one).

Honourable Mention
Waddington OM, for baking its own bread and rolls.

Worst would be the Officers Mess for us student pilots at Cranwell in 1981-82. Best is difficult to choose from but Honington, Brize and Farnborough were all superb.

My most memorable meal in uniform was in about 1968 on exercise in Germany. We had a covert role which meant we had to carry a weeks rations on us, ie rice and nuts, not even curry powder as the smell could give us away. At ENDEX we were starving and exhausted, moved into a barn and the German farmer's wife sold us one of her chickens which she pot roasted in gravy with potatoes and garlic. Still drool when I think of it.

My father always said his most memorable meal in uniform, sort of, was in Burma in 1944 when they casseroled a Japanese guard's dog in a bucket. Saved his life and he has had a soft spot for Labradors ever since.

Not perhaps the best, but certainly very memorable, was my introduction to curry every Sunday lunch in the O/Mess at Khormaksar. A yellow chicken concoction served in a very large bowl and plonked centre-table, with plain rice and peanuts - delicious, and cooked by Somalis I think. Washed down with copious Amstel. Then down to Tarshyne beach club for poon-hunting ---

Best. Armee de l'Air Officers Mess Istres. Free wine with lunch as well (but no flying after!).

Worst: Army camp somewhere on Salisbury plain. Chefs were infantrymen detailed at short notice. All they had to do was open compo and heat the contents, but they couldn't even manage that.

Around 1959, on TA exercise, we'd a jam roly-poly canned in 1939. Astonishing to have survived the war. Not v good but we were hungry teenagers :}

Diverted there with my sick navigator who was taken to sick-quarters for treatment whilst I was taken to the Mess for a fine lunch with three or four reds. Low level transit to Deci later that afternoon was a mellow affair.

Ahhhh Deci and the evil Deci Red.

That was mentioned post eating it with the phrase from an ex opo

"I hope to :mad: this :mad: doesn't have almonds in it otherwise we are :mad:"

Which did cause quite a bit of concern an ex-recce mech showing that level of general knowledge. We were relieved though to find he still only tied his boots with one lace and when asked what was the next month after June he had to think about it for a bit and use his fingers. So life returned to normal.

There was a can of cheese possessed as well but none of us really wanted to revisit that experience.

I still have a tin of marge and sugar lol

bet you didn't keep any of that bog paper

The only Government white paper worth a shhhhht

What was it. fold in 4, tear off corner, put finger through to scoop, then use torn off corner to clean nail.

..

Worst - Any 'Minute Steak' served in messes at weekends, just when you need a good tasty fillet to soak up the previous night's session. You'd be better removing the sole of your post-gym trainers and grilling it.

Best - good call by Smuj.. can't beat the good old Akt feeder breakfasts. As mush as you can eat, served by the lady who wore a little too much make-up.

Best: Herc captain Keith R***** phones me at Goose Bay Ops and asks if I want anything bringing out. I chance my arm and say I'd love an Indian takeaway. Keith very kindly goes to his local, gets a meal, freezes it and next day puts in on the ramp of his C130 for the 7ish hour transit. Was the best Indian I'd ever had and there were some very envious permies in the block that night. I think this was the same Keith who left a slab of beer under my desk at LYE - top bloke :ok:

an out-of-[box]body experience whilst roughing it as SMeto 1BR Corps on exercise "somewhere on the German Plain" c. 1975.

Met.shared a box body with Int, and a second one, leapfrogging, was Int sharing with Met. 2 met men, 2 Int.

After a whole night masked up inside the box body, with CS being tossed around by deranged intruders, to emerge foul and blinking at Endex and find:

A MESS TENT WITH CHAIRS AND TABLES, WHITE LINEN, SOME TABLE SILVER, FRESH BAKED BREAD AND ROLLS, AND A FULL ENGLISH.

The army explained that catering on deployment was a necessary skill, which needed to be demonstrated on exercise.

Amen. That's style for you.

another good one:

Families' Sunday Lunch RAF Mess JHQ 1990s ...............

Jazz [Trad Jazz!] on the patio with self-serve curries.

Could walk/ weave/ stagger to the Quarter afterwards.

Bikes NOT a good idea, because if done for drink/drive on bike, car driving licence revoked. True. German law apparently.

We plebs got free wine with both lunch and dinner at Istres!

Where we ate was a sort of Transit Hotel.

I was posted there for my 1st overseas tour, Sept 57, quite an education for a 20 year old :ok:

It was a tough life, but someone had to do it.

:) must be the funniest thing I've ever read on this forum! Genius.

I'd forgotten Harrier deployment meals. And they should remain thus.

Concur with Basil post # 42 ref Lim`s. Was`nt he at Bedok Corner ? Also RAAF Butterworth early / mid 60s. Steaks etc for breakfast. Cannot really remember any bad feed, but some must have come close.

The pancakes served for lunch in the Cadets Mess at OCTU Henlow were pretty special.

I was so impressed I asked for the recipe. It started off something along the lines of: Take 50 eggs, 16lbs plain flour.......

I can offer you the funniest. Preparing to transit 2 x F4 from Conningsby to ASI, junior nav was despatched to the OM to collect the packed meals for the 8-9 hour transit. Returned bearing 4 white boxes, a 2 litre fanta bottle filled with weak orange squash and 4 PLASTIC CUPS!!!! :ugh:

Most welcome grub was when MCSU arrived at Ali Al Salem. After a Bangladeshi diet of curried veg, boiled rice and boiled chicken the first MCSU meal prepared by Wally and his gang was delightful - chicken and mushroom pie, boiled pots and veg. Apple crumble and custard to follow.

Living in at Spadeadam was wonderful too - order daily and it was cooked and served as you walked through the door.

Worst has to be, by a significant distance, Catterick. Regularly served compo rations because the Mess had run out of money again and everything boiled to within an inch of it's life. Disgusting.

Best;

The salad bar in the Junior Gunroom at BRNC

The potmess brought up to our cabins at Seafield Park after 10 whole days on Aircrew Survival Course with just one mars bar and a third of a rabbit to eat.

Compo biscuits with pate and biscuits AB. Oatmeal block. In fact most of the old tinned compo was good when starving and cold.

Second Officer D******'s tits.

Worst?

Bagrats with those "sausage rolls" that coat the roof of your mouth with congealed grease and sandwiches with margarine and rubber cheese.

Best: RAF 34' yacht moored in Stavanger harbour. Trawler moors up next door - duty 'mother' buys fresh prawns caught 30 mins before & lightly fries them in butter with a hint of garlic for our lunch - washed down with a nice Chablis.

Worst: the fabulous free range breakfast bacon fried, quite deliberately, upwind of us by our Aircrew Survival instructors, for 3 starving days in a row. You utter, utter bastards! :mad:

Airmen's Mess at Machrihanish was excellent. Food cooked to order by people who cared.

Combined Mess at Nordhorn was also very good.

OM at Akronelli did great BBQs

Worst was definitely any Brown Job mess. I recall that in contrast to RAF catering, everything the Army served was brown and dished up with a ladle.

Slightly OT but 280 SU Olympus was mentioned, it was a good mess, lots of fresh fruit. On one GOC Annual Inspection of 259 Signals Regt detachment, the GOC asked a Signalman at lunch if he had any complaints, "Yessir" came the reply. Cue embarrassed shuffling by OC mountain Troop and the Staish (H***y W****y). "Well?" Asked GOC, "My greatcoat doesn't fit" came the reply.