A meal with broom for improvement!

THE YOUNG serviceman who was given soup flavoured with washing-up liquid, thanks to his father thinking he was helping with the kitchen chores and adding Fairy Liquid to the pressure cooker (Peterborough), reminded me of a similar situation during my service days.

I hadn’t been in the Army long, when one day I was a member of a fatigue party detailed to report to the cookhouse to help out.

The cook sergeant ordered me t o wash t hrough t he ovens under the hot plate. These ran the length of the hot plate and each had a separate sliding door.

He i nstructed me f i rst to remove the pans of liver and bacon casserole that had been prepared for the midday meal. This I did, then went to the far end with two buckets of hot water and a generous addition of scouring powder. I sluiced this into the first section and gave it a brush through with a broom and then brushed it through to the next sections.

All went well until I slid back the final door and, to my horror, I saw that I had missed removing one pan and there, floating on top of the prepared casserole, was a lovely pool of dirty scouring powder sludge.

Panic-stricken, the only thing I could think to do was to turn my broom upside down and, using the handle, stir the sludgy mixture into the liver and bacon and then rapidly place it under one of the other pans.

Reluctantly, at dinner I joined the rest of the lads for the meal. You couldn’t miss a meal, and I hoped I wouldn’t get a serving from the ‘extra-flavoured’ pan.

I don’t think I did, as my meal tasted perfectly OK, and I didn’t hear anyone else complain. Although if anyone did think their food tasted a little different, they probably put it down to it being not one of the Army’s better meals.