Compo Favourites

Evaporated milk,when I was a kid during the war we used to spoon it up.When I joined up,and got it in the compo packs used to turn me up,made good rice pudding though!
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Don

I'd forgotten completely about the plastic tops! Maybe plastic hadn't been invented when I was a rookie?

Funny what you remember - But I forget where I have left my car keys LoL

what a odd lot condenced milk was in tubes like toothpaste & perhaps the spike on the Jackknife was for picking yer teeth

Condenced Milk is still available in tins, and indeed in tubes as well! Not like the toothpaste tubes of old in the 24 Hour packs (remember tubes of jam as well)



Mind you so are 'Babies Heads' in tins by Goblin



How many other old favourites can we still find?

On my trip over just past, I see that custard and cream are still the favorite on the desert. The sticky toffee pudding covered in custard I had in Lincoln was positively decadent

Mutton scotch style
Irish stew
Ham and egg
Salmon
Fruit cake
Bacon
Corned beef
Butter(rancid mostly)
Tin opener(very good even today)
Toilet paper(sandpaper was better)
And if the QM did not get to the pack first 50 fags iin a tin!

And many I've forgotton!
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Don

What about the good old Army standby dessert ... Manchester Tart ..
how any piece of pastry could be rolled that thin and jam applied so sparingly eludes me .. but Manchester Tart and the yellow gritty substance the cooks called custard poured over it went down well with a mug of 'orange' tea.

Len (Ciphers)

ciphers wrote:

What about the good old Army standby dessert ... Manchester Tart ..

Len (Ciphers)

Oh yes, I've heard about her!!!!

donald wrote:

Mutton scotch style
Irish stew
Ham and egg
Salmon
Fruit cake
Bacon
Corned beef
Butter(rancid mostly)
Tin opener(very good even today)
Toilet paper(sandpaper was better)
And if the QM did not get to the pack first 50 fags iin a tin!

And many I've forgotton!
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Don

Speaking of toilet paper...what was it about the German civilians and that wax paper they used? Good grief! Never figured out the rationale to that. Heaven forbid one suffered from hemorrhoids because that wax paper did nothing to relieve or alleviate the...er...effects. If anything, the stuff aggravated an existing condition!

Not only that but, as I recall, it only got dispensed in one sheet approx. 5" by 4" or some such....hardly adequate!

Stephen,
Must say having been here many years not met this one.Maybe in the Soest area they used the waterproof sort in case the dam busters paid another visit?
And 5X4 was about the size of the compo issue pieces as I recall,and it was coloured "brown" to merge with the cam nets!
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Don

In the 70's & 80's we used to get rolls of smooth(ish) toilet paper in rolls in the block, with each sheet marked 'Government Property' I was in two minds to return it after use. You had to be careful as one side was smooth and the outer had wood chips in it!

At least the compo paper (white by then) was smooth on both sides!

I was given some 'boil in the bag' 1990's rations at the time and they had packets of Kleenex Tissues, and it toke me a minute to realise they were not for blowing your nose on!

The wax paper TP was not army issue (well, apparently it was in some instances) but civilian. And yes, some had wood chips in it -- I'd forgotten about that!! Yikes! It was also difficult to maintain a proper...uhm...grip on the damn stuff and it often slipped at the most inopportune time LOL

donald wrote:

Stephen,
Must say having been here many years not met this one.Maybe in the Soest area they used the waterproof sort in case the dam busters paid another visit?
And 5X4 was about the size of the compo issue pieces as I recall,and it was coloured "brown" to merge with the cam nets!
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Don

That could be Donald, that could be....

I'm not even going to comment on the colour of the compo issue pieces...no way!!

Stephen Lock wrote:

The wax paper TP was not army issue (well, apparently it was in some instances) but civilian. And yes, some had wood chips in it -- I'd forgotten about that!! Yikes! It was also difficult to maintain a proper...uhm...grip on the damn stuff and it often slipped at the most inopportune time LOL

It may not have been in the Canadian Forces, but it was to the British! That was what was provided in the barrack blocks, work places and schools in BOAR for many many years. NAAFI had better paper than we did in the block! It was not unusual to buy your own 'Comfy Bum' roll.

Please try to remember that BAOR was mainly a British Formation!

Being marked 'GOVERNMENT PROPERTY' is a big clue that it was not civilian!

my first experience of composite rations[compo]was the mid 60,s.in training we were issued a 24 hr rat/pk and then shown how to cook it using a heximine cooker and our mess tins.[and we still made a dogs ear of the food].larger rat/pks 5 and 10 man pks were cooked for us by tha ACC,the only tins that i ever remember being labeled were the tins of red salmon,the older 24 hr pks contained tubes of,jam,margarine,and condensed milk. i know it was a long time ago now but i always remember the suet outer of compo being a tad thicker than its civilian counter part [thats my personal recolection i have been wrong before],dave.

Mike_2817 wrote:

Stephen Lock wrote:

The wax paper TP was not army issue (well, apparently it was in some instances) but civilian. And yes, some had wood chips in it -- I'd forgotten about that!! Yikes! It was also difficult to maintain a proper...uhm...grip on the damn stuff and it often slipped at the most inopportune time LOL

It may not have been in the Canadian Forces, but it was to the British! That was what was provided in the barrack blocks, work places and schools in BOAR for many many years. NAAFI had better paper than we did in the block! It was not unusual to buy your own 'Comfy Bum' roll.

Please try to remember that BAOR was mainly a British Formation!

Being marked 'GOVERNMENT PROPERTY' is a big clue that it was not civilian!

Ahhhh....Thanks for the memory jog. While I still cannot swear to the wax paper TP being issued within the Canadian army crowd (although it may well have been, in barracks and such), when you mentioned it was issued in the schools I suddenly got this 'memory flash' of when I was attending Cornwall Comprehensive in Dortmund in 1972....it must have been fairly early in my sojourn there as I was still trying to adjust to an entirely different school culture from what I was used to (like having to wear a school uniform!!).

It was likely in my first week there but at any rate I was "using the facilities" and, Lo and behold, what I had access to was that horrible wax paper butt-wipe! I now remember sitting there in stunned amazement. This is what I had to use??? What are these people??? As if having to wear itchy grey trousers and being choked by a school tie wasn't bad enough! LOL However, I eventually adjusted -- to both the itchy grey flannels and to the waxy toilet paper.

School lunches were an entirely different matter -- starchy, dreadful things. I never really adjusted to that. The best of the lot was some concoction, which to this day I have no idea what it was supposed to be, but it was some sort of bean/chili sort of stew thing that, while hardly gourmet, did have some flavour to it. The attempts at cheese lasagna (I assume it was lasagna) were a dismal failure -- horrible, bland, starchy, smelly, usually half-scorched crap, but one ate it because one was hungry. I still shudder at the memory of it. LOL

Now, as I think a bit harder, I do seem to recall that when Soest was closing out and I had a summer job (unusual for us Canadian kids, although a few did snag jobs at CANEX and a few lucky one had part time jobs at the rink etc) a team of us were in one of the barracks clearing out the last of the desks, lockers and cots and such. I do seem to recall the 'army issue' toilet paper there was if not actually the wax paper variety, certainly a very coarse, rough, low-grade paper. Well, soldiers are tough -- in all ways!!!!

Re: the toilet paper: I remember one side being almost the texture of grease-proof paper. My friends in 7 Sigs used to joke that: "one side was for wiping, the other for polishing".

And as for the rations: there was a secret ingredient that made it all taste much better. It was, and still is, called HP Sauce. Honest souls picked one up at the NAAFI or MLS prior to departure; lesser folk simply lifted it off the mess hall table when no one was looking.

But don't let me spoil your breakfast.

I am told that Tabasco Sauce is a favourite of todays soldiers!

I have never been a lover of spicy food myself.

recce83 wrote:

.... "one side was for wiping, the other for polishing".....

A hell of a long time since I heard or read that one

Paul.

Mike_2817 wrote:

I am told that Tabasco Sauce is a favourite of todays soldiers!

I have never been a lover of spicy food myself.

Too much of that and a certain Johnny Cash song comes to mind. And the standard issue toilet paper would have rather exacerbated the situation

Dried chillies, and Tomato Chutney - Gurkha style - can have the same effect

Paul.

My eldest, currently serving on Op HERRICK, tells me that Tabasco makes a world of difference to the otherwise bland modern compo.

In the UK we have a chocolate bar called a YORKIE BAR which is large chunks of chocolate, its advertising was aimed at men, with a 'Not for Girls' logo



However for compo parks it was re-packaged as 'Not for Civvies'



Note however it still has the girl with handbag on it!

I believe it has now been withdrawn from the new packs as it melts in hot sandy places!

On an exercise - many eons ago - in Australia, the chocloate in their ration packs was Cadburys.

That stuff stood up to the heat, I can tell you. I ended up with most of it as the Gurkhas did not like it, saw me eating a bar, and gave it all to me. I was still eating it 2 months later.

Paul.

Paul wrote:

recce83 wrote:

.... "one side was for wiping, the other for polishing".....

A hell of a long time since I heard or read that one

Paul.

Thought to wiping side was used for sand paper. I ran into a fella from the paper company who supplied that item to the BOAR in Weston- Super- Mare. The Canadian Brigade had just changed over to their own supplier (66 or 67) and he said we were softies. That's when I mentioned about the wiping side being good for sand paper and the smooth side could be used as wax paper.

PS: He agreed.