BISCUITS! Army biscuits! What a volume of blessings and cursings have been uttered on the subject of biscuits—army biscuits!
What a part they take in our daily routine: the carrying of them, the eating of them, the cursing of them!
Could we find any substitute for biscuits? Surely not! It is easy to think of biscuits without an army, but an army without biscuits—never.
Exert from The Anzac Book, Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by The Men of ANZAC
Cassell and Company, London 1916
The appalling conditions also complicated eating with another report stating: “Owing to the annoyance of the flies some sections did not eat anything but a dry biscuit during the daytime. To eat biscuit and jam in the daytime a man had to keep moving the hand that held the food
----
You had no soap. We never washed. Our knife and fork and spoon you dug it into the earth and then wiped the dirt off it, just clean any grease that might be on it. Bully beef in tins, that’s what we were living on and you’d put the tea in the lid and the stew that was stewed up in the other part, and when you’d finished it you cleaned it as well as you could and put it on your belt and waited for the next meal. When we were in the front line we used to get a piece of bread and that was our food for the 24 hours while we were there. And then we had dixies, we used go back and get tea, of a sort. And of course you couldn’t drink any of the water without it was tested because everything was poisoned before we got there.
'Stanley Herbert remembers Passchendaele', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/sound/stanley-herbert-remembers-passchendaele, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 7-Mar-2013
Mobile cookers like this one, which belonged to the Wellington Regiment, were able to provide simple hot meals to soldiers in the support trenches within 1000 metres of the front line. The supply of food and hot drinks, such as tea, coffee and cocoa, was crucial in maintaining the health and morale of troops who had to endure not only the anxiety of combat but the physical hardship of days and nights huddled in cold, muddy trenches.
What a part they take in our daily routine: the carrying of them, the eating of them, the cursing of them!
Could we find any substitute for biscuits? Surely not! It is easy to think of biscuits without an army, but an army without biscuits—never.
Biscuits, like the poor, are always with us. Crawling from our earthly dens at the dim dawning of the day, we receive no portion of the dainties which once were ours in the long ago times of effete civilization; but, instead, we devour with eagerness—biscuit porridge. We eat our meat, not with thankfulness, but with biscuits. We lengthen out the taste of jam—with biscuits. We pound them to powder. We boil them with bully. We stew them in stews. We fry them as fritters. We curse them with many and bitter cursings, and we bless them with few blessings.
Biscuits! Army biscuits! Consider the hardness of them. Remember the cracking of your plate, the breaking of this tooth, the splintering of that. Call to mind how your finest gold crown weakened, wobbled, and finally shriveled under the terrific strain of masticating Puntley and Chalmer’s No.5’s.
Think of the aching void where once grew a goodly tooth. Think of the struggle and strain, the crushing and crunching as two molars wrestled with some rocky fragment. Think of the momentary elation during the fleeting seconds when it seemed that the molars would triumphantly blast and scrunch through every stratum of the thrice-hardened rock. Call to mind the disappointment, the agony of mind and body, as the almost victorious grinder missed its footing, slipped, and snapped hard upon its mate, while the elusive biscuit rasped and scraped upon bruised and tender gums.
Think of the aching void where once grew a goodly tooth. Think of the struggle and strain, the crushing and crunching as two molars wrestled with some rocky fragment. Think of the momentary elation during the fleeting seconds when it seemed that the molars would triumphantly blast and scrunch through every stratum of the thrice-hardened rock. Call to mind the disappointment, the agony of mind and body, as the almost victorious grinder missed its footing, slipped, and snapped hard upon its mate, while the elusive biscuit rasped and scraped upon bruised and tender gums.
Biscuits! Army Biscuits! Have you, reader, ever analysed with due carefulness the taste of army biscuits? It is the delicious succulency of ground granite or the savoury toothsomeness of powdered marble? Do we perceive a delicate flavouring of ferro-concrete with just a dash of scraped iron railing? Certainly, army biscuits, if they have a taste, have one which is peculiarly of their own. The choicest dishes of civilised life, whether they be baked or boiled, stewed or steamed, fried, frizzled, roasted or toasted, whether they be composed of meat or fish, fruit or vegetable, have not (thank Heaven!) any taste to that of army biscuits. Army biscuits taste like nothing else on the Gallipoli Peninsula....
O. E. Burton, N.Z.M.C.
O. E. Burton, N.Z.M.C.
Exert from The Anzac Book, Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by The Men of ANZAC
Cassell and Company, London 1916
----
In his 1919 official history
The New Zealanders at Gallipoli, Major Fred Waite DSO recalled:
The army biscuits can never be forgotten...their hardness was beyond belief...so hard that it was nibbled round the edges and tossed into No Man's Land.
“tinned meat, jam and hard biscuits and a mug of tea provided 99 per cent of the meals”
In his 1919 official history
The New Zealanders at Gallipoli, Major Fred Waite DSO recalled:
The army biscuits can never be forgotten...their hardness was beyond belief...so hard that it was nibbled round the edges and tossed into No Man's Land.
“tinned meat, jam and hard biscuits and a mug of tea provided 99 per cent of the meals”
The appalling conditions also complicated eating with another report stating: “Owing to the annoyance of the flies some sections did not eat anything but a dry biscuit during the daytime. To eat biscuit and jam in the daytime a man had to keep moving the hand that held the food
----
You had no soap. We never washed. Our knife and fork and spoon you dug it into the earth and then wiped the dirt off it, just clean any grease that might be on it. Bully beef in tins, that’s what we were living on and you’d put the tea in the lid and the stew that was stewed up in the other part, and when you’d finished it you cleaned it as well as you could and put it on your belt and waited for the next meal. When we were in the front line we used to get a piece of bread and that was our food for the 24 hours while we were there. And then we had dixies, we used go back and get tea, of a sort. And of course you couldn’t drink any of the water without it was tested because everything was poisoned before we got there.
'Stanley Herbert remembers Passchendaele', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/sound/stanley-herbert-remembers-passchendaele, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 7-Mar-2013
---
'Mobile cooker on the Western Front', URL: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/mobile-cooker-on-western-front, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 20-Dec-2012
No comments:
Post a Comment