Eula McClary spent ten days as a guest of the Atlantic fleet on an American battleship in 1917. She wrote about meal preparation and food storage on the ship.

The following is excerpted from Somewhere on the Atlantic by Eula McClary published in Good Housekeeping, January 1918 issue.

“It may be of interest to know how I, a woman, was permitted to go with the fleet, a most unusual procedure. Of course I was not permitted to go for the mere pleasure of the trip, nor to satisfy my own curiosity. I was sent to report, from a mother’s angle, to anxious mothers of sons in the navy, how their boys are living.”

“As representative mother I went to learn how our 40,000 sons were behaving; what kind of food they were eating; how hard they had to work; how much sleep they got; whether the sanitary conditions were right; and above all if those blessed boys were well and happy.”

What About Food Aboard Ship?

“The kitchen, called galley in terms of the sea, is on the top deck of the newer ships. In the old ships, constructed in days when sanitation did not form so important a part of life on land and sea, the kitchens are below, away from the fresh air and the sunshine. All the galleys were immaculately clean, much too clean to please a woman who would have liked to find some fault in the housekeeping results of a male world.

The latest cooking equipment facilitates the preparation of the food. Ships‘ cooks and assistants are numerous. They begin work about two or three in the morning and finish after supper is served. Twice a week (the nights beans are baking for breakfast), one cook must sit up all night and watch the beans that they do not burn.

Right here I should like to say that navy beans have a right to the name. They are the favorite dish of the men, and they put Boston Baked Beans to shame. I haven’t decided what magic seasoning is put in them or whether it is the mixture of the tang of the salt air, but Uncle Sam’s sea cooks have made bean-baking an art.”

Cold Storage on the Battleship

“The cold-storage plants, of which each ship has several, are opened but twice a day. You can imagine how large they are. Two hundred thousand pounds of fresh meat is placed in cold storage at one time on the largest ships! Fresh meat is never taken aboard during the day, as the sun rays might start a deterioration of the meat. At sundown, a big cold-storage ship anchors alongside the fighting ship, and The meat is quickly taken aboard and placed in the cold-storage plants, which I can testify from personal contact are twin sisters to the arctic.

I saw two hundred thousand pounds of fresh meat brought aboard in five hours. I followed the last piece into one of the cold storage rooms to test the temperature and sought the engine-rooms far below a few minutes later, vowing then and there never to become a cold-storage investigator.”

Storing tinned Goods, Potatoes, and Onions

“Supplies of tin goods are placed in various storerooms throughout the ship. Potatoes and onions have special lockers on the top deck. These lockers are great wire boxes which hold enough spuds–one never says potatoes on shipboard—and onions to feed the men many days. When the ship is underway, the onion locker is left unlocked; hardened seamen, who have learned how to keep their healthiest and happiest on the water, eat a raw onion “all day when on “sea rations,” which means a diet of no fresh vegetables. Onions satisfy the craving which such a diet causes.

Vegetables can not be taken to sea because they are perishable. In port there is always an abundance of fresh vegetables. Onions also prevent scurvy and other skin diseases which come from a diet lacking in mineral salts and vitamins, two properties found in green vegetables.”

Potato peeling

“On board every ship there is a vegetable paring machine called a “spud peeler.” When it is in working order, it grates off the skin of the potato with an emery board. But like other similar devices it frequently does not work. The cooks’ assistants must then peel enough spuds for from 1000 to 1500 men, with knives! Since potatoes are served two and three times a day, the amount of potato paring done is considerable.

The waste on shipboard is a problem. Much of it is necessary. There are no ice-boxes in which to store leftovers. This means that when too much food is prepared, it has to be thrown away. But the cook can gauge the eating capacity of the ship’s crew almost to a serving. Uncle Sam has studied these problems and allotted so much a day for each man. On seasick days, the cook is also a good judge of the amount of food that will be eaten. The old-time method of serving meals on war-ships makes unnecessary waste. This system is still in use on the majority of the ships, but Secretary Daniels has introduced two new systems on several different ships, as trial systems in reducing the waste and serving the food hotter.”

Tea, coffee, and cocoa

“Tea, coffee, and cocoa are served with the meals. They are brought from the galley in great copper kettles, which are suspended by a line from beams overhead. Every string or rope or cable is a “line,” in the language of the white garbed blue-jacket.”

Battleship bakery

“The bakery is kept busy from early morning until late in the afternoon, baking one pound of bread a day for each man. I found only white bread in the bakeries; no war bread or whole wheat. Johnny-cake is served, as well as real pies and cake. Sweets form an important part of the diet. Whether it is youth or the salt air that makes the teeth of these sailor boys so sweet, I can not decide. But they crave sweets.

The new recruits, “ the kids,” as the canteen clerk calls them, hound the canteen during shopping hours to buy chocolate and cookies. The older men are satisfied with the amount of sweets served at mess. Ice-cream is the favorite dessert. Next to baked beans it is the most popular food on board. It is served at least twice a week and usually oftener; it is made of evaporated milk and is good; delicious, in fact. I am not keen about ice-cream myself, but each time it was served I had two helpings and enjoyed every bit of it.”

Battleship efficiency depends partly on food

“Uncle Sam has learned that the efficiency of a ship depends upon happy, contented men. He has also learned what we mothers have always known that men satisfied with their food are happy and contented. Each year the quality of the mess improves, and its cost decreases in spite of the fact that there is a constant increase in the cost of living to civilians.

Long ago Disraeli said: “Public health is the foundation on which repose the happiness of the people and the power of a country. The care of public health is the first duty of a statesman.” Josephus Daniels agrees with Disraeh and applies these principles to the United States Navy, which is the best fed navy in the world, and boasts of it, just as each ship boasts that it is the best ship in the fleet. One rough but happy son said when he first joined Uncle Sam’s fighting greyhounds, “I’ve sailed the seven seas, but I never before heard of serving food on hot plates.”

Late nights and extra lunches

“I didn’t stay up on any night watches with the boys, but I was told hot coffee and sandwiches are provided for them when they come off watch. Also extra lunches are served on the days the ship is laying in supplies or coaling, two strenuous and long jobs which work every one on shipboard to the limit.”

Laying in supplies on the battleship

“I helped lay in supplies one day. All day long we took on boxes of tinned goods, dry foods, cans of butter, crates of cereals, tons of potatoes and onions. The great cranes would swing around from the supply ship and deposit hundreds of pounds of something on the deck. We would pack them in wheelbarrows, take them over to the hatches and let them down with a rope into the bowels of the ship.

Another day I coaled. I got as black and chimney-sweepie-looking as any of my sons. The band played all day long. March after march, ragtime after ragtime sounded throughout that dirty ship to cheer up the soot besmeared boys and incite their tired muscles to just one more effort.”

This finishes the account of Eula McClary on her ten days on an Atlantic battleship in 1917, as published in Good Housekeeping in January 1918.