Description of cooking on a British tank regiment

"Each tank crew cooked for themselves, and enjoyed using their originality on the limited rations. We achieved time after time dishes of professional elegance and great variety from the invariable issues of rations. Every meal was a competition between the various tank crews. We were always a little sorry when we began to eat in the black tent again, and no longer had the right to eat the delicacies cooked by our crews, although the officers' mess cook fed us very well.

If we stopped more than two days in an area, ovens, cooking pots, fireplaces, frying pans and wash-basins were made out of cut and hammered petrol tins. Extra mugs and mess tins were made from empty tins with wire handles fitted to them. Everyone wanted to cook, and took turns in trying out new recipes. From biscuits, of which the issue varied from light and palatable ones by Peak Frean or Jacobs to dry, solid, soapy-tasting slabs made somewhere in Australia, we made porridge by smashing the biscuits to powder with a hammer, soaking them overnight and boiling the result for breakfast in the morning. When it was made with oatmeal biscuits, this was indistinguishable from real porridge. It was always warm and filling, with sugar and condensed milk added to it. From biscuits and jam, cakes and puddings were made, well browned on the outside and doughy in the middle. Sometimes there were currants to add, and a sort of duff was made. Biscuits were fried in the fat of American tinned bacon. There were immense stews of tinned meat and vegetable, Worcester sauce, onions, tinned potatoes: fried bully shreds, brown and crisp, with potato chips or crisps, and fried and flavoured rice cakes. If there were a flour issue, we had bully fritters, in batter, or fritters of dried fruit, or batter dumplings, or meat, jam, or treacle pies and pastries—we had plenty of margarine. Cheese fritters, flapjacks, pancakes, angels on horseback—the triumphs of these menus were endless. Occasionally gala feasts of eggs or sheep bought from the Senussi for tea, sugar, bully or biscuits, or on one occasion, for the two halves of an old Italian map, handed over with an air, by an Irishman. Sometimes an ill-fated gazelle or two crossed our path. Nor did we ever have the heartbreaking experience of eating good food spoiled by apathetic cooking."

...........................................................................................................................................................

I suspect this is true of every Army in every time. John D. Billings in "Hard Tack And Coffee" wrote similar antedotes...