My Dad and a Couple of his Buddies, around 1952
The Naval Station Great Lakes is a very short drive north of my sweet home, Chicago. It’s the Navy’s only boot camp, cranking out sailors to the tune of 30,000 a year … and yet I’d never heard of the place! I thought it might be mildly interesting to take a leisurely drive up there. My trip to the on-base National Museum of the American Sailor turned unexpectedly exciting (to me, anyway) when I stumbled upon a “Navy food” exhibit. It included some documents, descriptions, and cookbooks that dated from late 19th and early 20th-century. One of the documents that held my attention was a “Bill of Fare for the General Mess” dating from 1945. It contains menu plans for a week’s worth of mid-century Navy food.
Of course, the first thing I did was scour the list to see if they’d planned to serve SOS. (Yes: for breakfast on Thursday.) Then I found myself wondering what some of the less familiar dishes might have been: “Spanish Sauce,” “Perfection Salad,” and “O’Brien Potatoes,” for instance … or what might’ve passed for “Braised Veal” on an aircraft carrier. I didn’t have to wonder long. The San Francisco Maritime National Park Association has e-published The Cookbook of the United States Navy from 1945. As soon as I’d made that discovery, I determined to recreate one of these meals.
Thursday Lunch:
Hot Soup
Grilled Ham Steaks
Cream Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Buttered Corn
Pineapple – Cheese Salad
Apple Pan Dowdy
Bread – Butter
Iced Grapefruit Juice
The Navy recipes are not as bad as I thought they’d be. Each recipe invariably serves 100 and easily can be scaled upward, which seems almost normal to someone raised in a good, old-fashioned Catholic family. But other than that, I think they’re fairly representative of what passed as home cooking in middle-class American homes of the era. In all fairness, the exhibit made a highlighted point of the fact that the modern Navy eats very well. Nonetheless, in the earliest days of the Navy, “cook” was not a pre-determined designation, nor was there any training for it. If the guys would eat your cooking, you could be the cook. Well, a lot of guys eat my cooking, so I’m going to take it upon myself to reimagine this vintage Navy meal.
Clicking on the recipe titles will take you to the 1945 Navy recipe.
Knickerbocker Soup
Apparently, this a rather familiar sailor’s soup. Could it use some garlic? Maybe add thyme and bay leaves, and serve it with Parmesan? A Fresno chili pepper, and a side of charred bread would dress it up a bit.
Here’s my dad in his knickerbockers:
Circa 1947. His mom lied and said he was 18 (he was 17) so that he could join.
First mission: puppy rescue?
Griddle-Broiled Ham
You can probably intuit this recipe. The important parts are:
- Don’t add oil to the pan, or you’ll be sautéing rather than broiling.
- Indeed, you also must remove oil from the pan as it accumulates.
- Why not use the oven broiler?
Cream Gravy
Some cream gravies (aka milk gravy) use butter instead of drippings (or if you’re Paula Deen, both). A few recipes calls for vegetable oil, which sounds almost clueless. Maybe tart it up with a little whole-wheat flour and cayenne, or perhaps bastardize it with some onion, thyme, and chicken broth?
Mashed Potatoes
The 1945 Navy whipped its potatoes. I don’t, mainly because I love just a bit of chunky texture in them. If you do prefer the whip, take special care not to overwork them, or they’ll become gummy. I’m intrigued by the rutabaga variation.
Buttered Corn
I almost didn’t look this one up. Who needs a recipe to make buttered corn? But I’m an academic in my day job, so I did look it up. It turns out to be a doctored-up can of cream-style corn. On my ship, we make these things from scratch, using heavy cream, a sliver of garlic, cayenne, thickened corn milk, and maybe a touch of cheese. Or maybe we follow a wildly outlandish chophouse recipe.
Pineapple – Cheese Salad
This one frightens me, almost to death. Canned pineapple chunks, lettuce, cheddar, and mayo? My usual response to unusual combinations is to be first in line to try them, but some deep-seated instinct is telling me to take a pass here. While researching alternatives, I found some recipes that call for lemon Jell-O, maraschino cherries, American cheese, and mini marshmallows, moving this satanic-sounding salad several steps closer to the hellmouth. I did find a blogger who makes a case for the Navy version of this salad, however. And the Navy, of all people, calls for making this salad with a from-scratch mayo. I feel myself coming around. Maybe a really exotic mayo? Maybe I’ll use fresh, poached pineapple instead of canned?
Apple Pan Dowdy with Hard Sauce
The Navy version’s just a little bit too dowdy. I’m going to fancy it up without making it elegant. One of the nice things about dowdies is that they’re not pies (which have clear-cut, traditional taste profiles), nor are they crisps (which should be, by their nature, spiciastically austere). You can get away with things like ginger (powdered or fresh), cider, or molasses. The defining feature is the broken up, partially submerged crust. According to some, this must be done half-way through baking, in order to maintain crispness. Others say the final texture should be more pudding-like – which sounds intriguing. Hard Sauce? Never heard of it, but it turns out to be a melts-on-demand powdered-sugar glaze. Ingenious! Off-duty Hard Sauce is made with alcohol instead of vanilla.
Bread and Butter
I’m an experienced bread baker with plenty of my own preferences, but I think I might try the Navy’s recipe just for kicks.
Iced Grapefruit Juice
From the looks on their faces, you’d think someone switched out their beers with
iced grapefruit juice.
So, this is my plan. I’ll be making the dishes individually and posting them as I do (over time). Then, I’ll re-make them all as I pull them together into a single meal. Serving 100? No, but maybe 10. On metal trays? Probably not, although I’m tempted. It’s going to be a huge lunch; I think I might serve it in courses. Dinner music? Obvious, In the Navy, No Dames, New York, New York (although this version is pretty awesome) … and of course you can’t have a Navy without pirates. Stay tuned! If it goes well, maybe I’ll recreate Navy rations in the years following the Revolutionary War.
Mid-Century Navy Food
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for a pleasure cruise on a Navy destroyer.
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Omg this is such a great, funny, sad post. Love it. Not so much the food, although broiled ham and mashed potatoes don’t sound awful… Such wonderful photos.
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Thanks, Mimi. It’s definitely both cool and sad to look at those pictures. I’m not quite sure how to properly articulate it, but when memory shifts into history, it reminds you about how right now is in a way insignificant, but in another way, it’s everything. This meal is very low-brow in some ways, but it’s also very American and has interesting Southern roots. I think I can elevate into something interesting.
As a fellow kitchen scholar, I cannot tell you how excited I am to see the end results. And by all means, if you can find metal trays, perhaps one or two at an antique mall of some sort or eBay? (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Military-WWII-Navy-Marines-Army-6-Compartment-Stainless-Steel-Food-Serving-Tray/382567458916). As for the salad, I can’t even see Dru eating that one. I’ll assume that it was an acquired taste food of the times. My mother did one with cottage cheese, jello, and pineapple and oh great now I’m having flashbacks. All in all, I can’t wait. Sounds like a heck of a party and a very cool field trip.
Thanks for the link! I’m starting to feel good about that salad. I’m going to make it work.
Your Dad at 17 holding that puppy looked way too cute 🙂 Look forward to your creations…my mouth is watering thinking about that oven broiled ham 🙂
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Thanks! Isn’t that a great picture?
Love this… and I think you should make the original pineapple cheese salad in ALL it’s glory. haha! I am really interested. I know military food gets a bad rap, but I can tell you that when I was not eating MREs, I thought the Army food, in general, was pretty dang good. I never had a meal that tasted GREAT, but particularly when I was overseas, I thought the chow hall did a good job.
Probably better than most young men were eating.
Cool! I didn’t elaborate on it, but the exhibit went in depth about the culinary achievements of the modern Navy. They made it seem that the current food situation is pretty good, highly varied, and good for you. So, I’m not at all surprised to hear that you ate pretty well in the modern Army.
What a fun find, Jeff! My Dad was in the Navy, too, and I’ve emailed him a link to this cookbook. I bet it brings back memories…although I’m not sure if they’ll be good or bad. The thought of braised veal being prepared on a ship in the middle of the ocean doesn’t exactly lead to high hopes. And homemade mayo?! Seriously? Either way, I’m excited to see where this mini-series leads. Who knows…maybe you’ll get hired cooking for that Navy training base near you!
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What a cool coincidence! My never raved about Navy food, but we did eat SOS pretty regularly – I think because there were a lot of us, and you can make it in truckloads. But I think I can make this meal pretty tasty.
This was totally fascinating Jeff. My Dad was in the Royal Navy here in the U.K. from 1956 until when he left to take up a civilian position in 1983. He’s retired now but in good health. Looking forward to seeing your recreations of these dishes. Oh and by the way, I like the sound of that Pineapple – Cheese salad. Reminds me of pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks which we still frequently serve at parties here! And of which my mum made when entertaining my Dads navy friends!
That is so cool! Our dads were allies! My dad was a radar specialist on an aircraft carrier.
Fun post! I haven’t thought of SOS in years. And probably haven’t eaten it in over 50 years. Maybe I should try it again? Well, maybe not. I wonder if they used a flat griddle or a grooved griddle for the ham. Grooved griddles leave grill marks, and are on a slight slant so the grease drains off. MUCH faster than trying to run 100 slices of ham under a broiler. You use it to cook hamburgers and steaks, too. (I once worked in a commercial kitchen briefly, and it was my favorite thing to cook on.)
John / Kitchen Riffs recently posted…Hot-Buttered Butter Lettuce Salad
That’s a great question. Let me ask you, why not broil it in a broiler? That’s what I was thinking of doing.
Jeff, I think my mom must of been in the navy cause I swear that’s the food I grew up on and why I studied cooking to find the real food world.
However, on one recipe I must comment. Mashed potatoes with rutabagas is good. In fact, you could find it here on a Swedish dinner table any night. You should give it a try.
Really enjoyed the post and reading all the recipes.
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You know, I suspected it would be! I’m eager to try it!
That s looks like a fun ride, can’t wait to read your posts. That pineapple salad is a pass for me, homemade mayo or not!
The Brits make a hard sauce to go with plum pudding at Christmas.
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Thanks, Eva. I’m starting to think that I’m going to have some fun with that pineapple dish. I’ve never had plum pudding, so perhaps that’s why I missed out on the hard sauce!
Fully fascinating. I was intrigued by the “hot soup” before both “dinner” and “supper”. Having grown up in the South I appreciate the difference between the two as the concept of “lunch” was more of a mid-day snack on the go… GREG
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Yeah, I noted that, too, Greg. That, as well as several of the dishes themselves, make me think that this cookbook has strong Southern influences.
Sounds like a really fun meal you had planned there. But those recipes… for 6 GALLONS of Knickerbocker Bean Soup? I hope you’re invited a crowd!
Btw, I also have some old photos of my dad wearing knickers back in the day. To think we’re only a generation removed from all of that…
Yeah, it’s kind of scary. And yes, six gallons of soup in enough to feed an army (or a navy). I’m planning to cut the recipes at least down to ten servings, if not five. Ideally, I’d like to cut them down to four or six, but we’ll just have to see how the ingredient ratios work out.
So glad to back track to this. I knew many people who attended that station. My father was actually a cook in the army, stationed in El Paso during the Korean war. He is very good at pancakes! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!
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That’s so cool! You should follow the link to the online version of the Navy cookbook and share it with him. I bet he’ll get a kick out of it!