Monday, December 16, 1968
Our Battalion Supply on Hill 34 received provisions from our requisition slips. The whole system was random, and everything came piecemeal. There was no regular order to what we received. Every week we would check in at the supply desk to claim whatever materials had arrived.
Fernando always checked with Tony (the Battalion Supply NCO) for items belonging to the mess hall. Today we received a new edition of the Navy/Marine Corps Recipe Guide. It came complete with color-coded index cards which fit into a hinged wooden box. The directions were cross-referenced, and all recipes were written to make 100-portion batches.
We rarely followed these instructions because of missing ingredients. An example of this was cheese or sour cream (there was none of either). We could substitute “Velveeta” for cheese, but it wasn’t the same, and in many products it became a gooey unappetizing glue.
One day for lunch we served “Spanish Franks,” following the recipe card exactly. This concoction was made by slicing canned hot dogs in a Spanish sauce, mixed with rice. We served this for the main entree, with fruit cocktail as a side dish and rainbow Jello for dessert.
There were no complaints about this lunch, but the GI trash can outside the mess hall was heavy with this uneaten mess. It was one of the worst meals we served on Hill 65, and we had accurately followed the printed recipe card.
My Vietnam Experience 