Does anyone eat the puddings?
Looking like I do you would think I did but I dont. Horrid!
aka Stigroadie
AFRA
better by design
"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. "
The rice pudding is ok, better with some jam in it, or chocolate powder. I've yet to sample the lemon sponge but it feels soft enough. As for the others, the chocolate and the treacle, they are extremely sweet, very hard to heat up all the way through and are quite hard textured. If you do manage to heat them up all the way, the sauce in them becomes volcanically hot! The sugar calorific content of them is off the clock though, you'll be buzzing for hours after eating them! The one thing I always had left from a rat' pack was the pudding!
When I want your opinion - I'll tell you what it is!
Seeing as it's only a 24 hour thing, I'm going to try for a more 1940s cook-it-yourself vibe. I've got a few simple and semi-authentic recipes that are quick and easy to cook and only require the regular brit army mess tin set and a sharp clean knife. You can cook it all on a hexi-burner but it's heavy on the fuel tabs, so I might check out one of the modern gel fuel tommy cookers instead. You can use the back of one tin as a chopping board,
Menu 1 - Corned beef hash
Ingredients:
10g of butter
half an onion
2 small potatoes
half a can of corned beef
Fill the large tin 3/4 with water and set to boil. As the water is heating, dice the potatoes into 1cm cubes, no need to peel them. Put the diced tatties into the hot water and boil them.
Meanwhile peel and dice the onion and chop the corned beef into 1cm cubes. Keep them separate.
Test the tatties by sticking a fork in them. When they seem slightly soft they're ready (about 8 mins). Drain them and set aside.
Heat the butter in the large tin until really hot. Add the onions and fry until they start turning brown. Add the cooked potatoes, then add the corned beef. Keep stirring. The fat in the corned beef will melt. When it all starts to look a bit like dog food you're done 
There's enough salt in the corned beef to not need anything else in the way of seasoning and it probably contains about a billion calories.
Takes about 20 minutes from start to finish. It's maybe not the most visually appealing dish but it's dee-licious. If you let the cooking pan soak in water for a few hours is also cleans up pretty easy. I can demo it at Milford if anyone's interested.
"Vot is zat dummkopf Englander doing, Karl?"
"Heh, zis is var, not cooking program. Feuer!!"
You've got nothing to ein, zwei, drei, vier
Are you sure you wouldn't rather have an SAS role for this event Martin? The Jeds will have more than fine cuisine on their minds and little opportunity for complex cooking. You will need sustenance and nourishment for sure, that's why Pete has suggested eating straight out of tins/bags. Just like the real thing, you need to get food down your throat as quick as possible - food is a means to an end not a picnic! 
It's not really fine cuisine and it's not especially complex either. I totally get what the Jed role is, but I enjoy doing this stuff and it adds to the immersion element for me. If we end up not having the time to do it I'll just eat the corned beef cold and throw the cayenne pepper in the Hun's eyes.
Dried meats are excellent too, but you'll need to take on more water if you eat them.
If we end up not having the time to do it I'll just eat the corned beef cold and throw the cayenne pepper in the Hun's eyes.
You can't beat a bit of bully! (beef). You are quite right of course, in that you could carry "authentic" food, albeit in modern packaging.
When I want your opinion - I'll tell you what it is!
OK
Next question: Portable gramophone players and a suitable selection of 78 rpms - I'm assuming this will all be covered on the training day, yes?
With regard to cookers, I was thinking of getting one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT any comments?
I bought one to try out and my comment is that they're rubbish. They're so small and the cooking ring is so unstable that a brit mess tin is in constant danger of falling off it, even on a flat concrete surface. German mess tins might be better because they're not so wide at the base but it would still be a risky exercise.
The heat output is also laughable. Half a large pan of cold water takes about 4 minutes to properly boil on a normal gas hob. An Esbit / hexamine cooker will do it in around 5 minutes. After 12 minutes (and half the fuel) this cooker was still only just simmering the water and I got the feeling that this was the limit of its ability.
The best thing about them is that they come with a 1980s era matchbook featuring a picture of a German man with a big moustache.
I'd guess that, just like using hexi tabs, it is better to drop the assembly into a small hole and put your pan resting on the earth rim. Concentrates the heat and stops the slightest breeze wafting the meagre heat out sideways.
I doubt if it would make much difference. Unlike esbit tabs the gel is shielded by the sides of the can so the flame isn't blown around that much anyway. To concentrate the heat any more and to make it more stable as a platform you'd have to make a hole at least three inches deep so the cooking ring is level with the ground. That would then make it trickier to extinguish as you're supposed to smother the flame by moving the lid in from the side to fully cover the opening. The bottom like is that the calorific value of the flammable gel is nowhere near as good as hexamine so why not just use hexamine and be done?
True enough! (I guess it was the 'tommy cooker' idea that appealed to Pete?)
Does anyone eat the puddings?
Looking like I do you would think I did but I dont. Horrid!
I ate a chocolate pudding one at Crich the other week, was rather tastey actually! 
I now have a Menu 4 pack on it's way, £5 + £5 P&P off ebay, as to the cooker I may still buy the gel fuel one, Dave's right the 'Tommy Cooker' aspect appealed to me, I'll test in out and if it's as bad as B&H says what I'll try is to use hexi blocks in it so that I have a more authentic looking cooker but with the greater efficiency of the hexi fuel
Its better value than this: http://www.tommyspackfillers.com/showit ... mRef=VS015
Looking at Pete's purchase it works out at £9 extra for a couple of labels!
I ate a chocolate pudding one at Crich the other week, was rather tastey actually!
You're welcome to my spare choccy pudding then! I hate that one 
.
When I want your opinion - I'll tell you what it is!
Dave's right the 'Tommy Cooker' aspect appealed to me, I'll test in out and if it's as bad as B&H says what I'll try is to use hexi blocks in it so that I have a more authentic looking cooker but with the greater efficiency of the hexi fuel
That's a good idea. You'll need to burn off the flammable gel first as I wouldn't want to chuck "pocket napalm" into the bin or down the drain 
The instability of the whole setup is a real concern though. It's clearly designed to heat up metal mugs rather that brit mess tins and the whole thing will tip over given the slightest chance, drenching the surrounding area with very hot water.
My Yorkie bar will be up for swapsies, if anybody's interested. (Had to laugh at the "not for civvies" wrapper. 
)
You've got nothing to ein, zwei, drei, vier
