Food & Compo

LOL Outed, dear me, will i ever live that down.

Comes in handy for Cafe' Menu's and the like

ah well, you know me to well Mike.

Hi everyone.

New to the site, only found it today.

Talk about compo, enjoyed everything in our packs.

I've tried compo from France, USA, Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, ROK, Thailand and the Philippines (most of this lot whilst working in East Timor).

Still reckon British compo (prior to the boil in the bag stuff) was the best, washed down with a couple of red export's, normally stashed safely away.

Mike

ah food, a subjcet dear to my heart.

Hi Mike.

I think my fav in a rat pack was the oatmeal block.
Looked everywhere in civi street for them to buy and no bugger does them !
Cheese possessed, i hated so much ! YUK !
Apple flakes were nice and bacon grill too.

Boil in the bag stuff was ok when they changed from tinned to boil in the bag stuff about 1990 (ish)
I still have on my key ring, the old compo tin opener thats dated 1984 !

I wonder if you can still buy compo in civi street ???????? yummy

the origin of the word scoff, squarely implanted in general language but with a firmly military background. It comes from the Boer War when the packaged food used by the British Army was marked with Senior Catering Officer Field Force.

That being the case, gingerjim will have an explanation for "Trough".  

I allways understood "scoff" to be an abbreviation of "Escoffier", a famous French foodie in Victorian times.
(August Escoffier).

SAH !

shelldrake , trough was the only place suitable for our compo rations , though i very much doubt the pigs would have even looked at the muck , ginger

When I was with 1 Corps Signal Regt in Maresfield Barracks Herford Jan 1955 - July 1956, we enjoyed many 'Exercise' and I had the pleasure to be the Field Kitchen Cook on some of them, and apart from the 'Pom' potatoes, which was ditched, and Sgt Brown 'Volenteered' to go to the nearest Farm to obtain some proper Spuds, the food was alright, I did'nt have any complaints.

I think when we talk about 'compo' we should take into account WHEN we are talking about, as rations improved in the early 70's and the tinned 4/10 Ration Pack for Centrol catering and the 24 Hour Pack with individual tins were a great improvement.

gingerjim wrote:

shelldrake , trough was the only place suitable for our compo rations , though i very much doubt the pigs would have even looked at the muck , ginger

When 4 CIBG was moved down to Lahr. We went onto American K-rations. Compo's were considered a luxury for those who still had some. Whole boxes of K-rations unopened would be turfed into the garbage. It got to the point where we were forbidden to buy bread and meat at local Edika's on exercise. I wouldn't feed K-rations to a starving man in a life boat. Mind you though I did meet an RCAF fella down in Bavaria on leave feeding that crap to his family while camping. He said with great wonderment in his voice, " The army guys were turfing these into the garbage". I explained to him, that possibly we army types, just might have a bit higher standard of food ideas. The Germans had good hard rations.

As I have posted elsewhere on this site, my favourite snack when on night time radio watch was a hunk of "cheese possessed" with an oatmeal. As a special treat in the mid 1960s there was a red version rumoured to have been part of a Canadian 10 man ration pack.

Picking up on Tom W's point there was an undoubted knack in getting the best out of compo rations, the knowledgeable could add a" little something" to dramatically change the taste. I have a friend, now in his 80s, who tells the story as a Bombadier in Palestine in 1946 and summarily appointed Section Chef, when the dispersed Gun Batteries went onto Crew Cooking, became the envy of the rest of the entire Regiment with his ability to season a main course properly or transform it by the odd spice or fruit locally purchased.

Mike_2817 wrote:

I think when we talk about 'compo' we should take into account WHEN we are talking about, as rations improved in the early 70's and the tinned 4/10 Ration Pack for Centrol catering and the 24 Hour Pack with individual tins were a great improvement.

You're right Mike, compo certainly DID improve in the early 70s. That having been said, we got rid of horrors like tinned bacon, Mutton Jock and Irish Spew only to be presented with the hated Chicken Supreme, (strangely I found it tastier when cold).
I seem to remember there was a very nice Chicken Curry.

Ex: Northern Defence NATO in Norway, Feb. 71. On completion of the exercise we were asked to pile our leftover hard rations outside the local shooting houses. Forget the name of the village/town. We were asked to pile them according to country of origin. Canadian, UK, USA. On doing this, I noticed the the Canadian rations went first, UK next and the USA were only picked over for the cigarette packs. I must mention, that our hard rations were commercial tins and packets with the commercial label on them. Not something painted in khaki and numbered. They came in a shoe box size box and were not bad at all. Incidentally the Norwegian soldiers playing the bad guys, when caught by Cdn's would immediately tell us that POW's had to be feed and that they wanted Canadian hard rations. The Norwegians hard rations came in a waxed box the size of a 510 radio battery and were apparently quite old.

brum wrote:

Mike_2817 wrote:

I think when we talk about 'compo' we should take into account WHEN we are talking about, as rations improved in the early 70's and the tinned 4/10 Ration Pack for Centrol catering and the 24 Hour Pack with individual tins were a great improvement.

You're right Mike, compo certainly DID improve in the early 70s. That having been said, we got rid of horrors like tinned bacon, Mutton Jock and Irish Spew only to be presented with the hated Chicken Supreme, (strangely I found it tastier when cold).
I seem to remember there was a very nice Chicken Curry.

I think 'Chicken Supreme' was later replaced by 'Chicken in Brown Sauce'

1980 improved menu's

"Chicken in brown sauce", why does that sound worse ? !

I love the bit at the bottom. "There is enough food in the 10 men pack for ten men . . .".
Nice of them to clarify that.   

brum wrote:

"Chicken in brown sauce", why does that sound worse ? !

I love the bit at the bottom. "There is enough food in the 10 men pack for ten men . . .".
Nice of them to clarify that.     

Given the size of some of the Military that I encounter on my travels, that would not be true in todays army.   

I knew of a BQMS who's wife ran a refreshment stall on a railway station not a million miles from where I live. Before issuing the Rat Packs, he would remove the cheese, salmon, chocolate and any other goodies that he could.  

A lot of the lads who were serving in the 50's grew up having lived 5 war years plus with food  rationing, so compo in any form was a luxury to most. When I had occasion to use it I ate it with relish (OK, OK, I know Daddies Sauce would have been better) and I'm still alive and kicking. Its wonderful what line crews can conjure up with a little imagination.

Len (Ciphers)

[quote="JPW"]As I have posted elsewhere on this site, my favourite snack when on night time radio watch was a hunk of "cheese possessed" with an oatmeal. As a special treat in the mid 1960s there was a red version rumoured to have been part of a Canadian 10 man ration pack.

I suspect it was a false rumour if this was in the mid-sixties. We enjoyed the same RASC iron rations as did you. However it was interesting to note on the menu item above that pack 'G' no longer has Mutton, Scotch Style. I confessed to having liked this at one time on one thread or another and was roundly ridiculed for my pains. (Can't really blame them.) Actually in Recce platoon, where we had to travel fast and light, we traded away just about everything for bully beef, accompanied by a loaf of bread from the local bacherie.

I used to like the compo rations, especially the 24 hour 10-man packs. I especially liked the tinned butter, two types of compo cheese and hard tack biscuits. The tins of compos sausages or bully beef also went down a treat when mixed up with hard tack biscuits and made into a type of 'hooch'. Oh, yes and the tins of jam, very nice. You could have a grand feast, but I always suspected that after eating this fare for a week or so, it caused one to be a tad 'bound up', hence the race for the Kharzis when back in camp after an exercise.

The strong, stewed tea with condensed milk was like nectar, especially on a cold day....... Oh heavens, the nectar of the gods....... all a long time ago, so I wonder if one can buy similar fare in the supermarkets or Aldis or Lidls to remind one of those far off days when we were all a tad young..?   

To quote Tommy Lorne, "Sausages are the boys". Compo sausages on RAOC bread couldn't be beaten.   

recce83

Thank you, another military myth destroyed but the taste/memories linger on