Postcard from the Past: Cooks Do Their Bit in Beating Boshes

While searching for an appropriate Veterans Day tribute, I came across the following letter to the editor by Frank Taylor in the Oct. 8, 1918 issue of the Laramie Boomerang and just couldn’t resist passing it along to our readers. Enjoy.

With the American Army in France, Sept. 21, 1918. By mail.

The army cooks had a lot to do with pushing the Germans back from the Marne. Any officer or doughboys will tell you this. The cooks were a great lot, and they were continually on the jump, getting food up to the boys who were fighting.

It was a common sight to see the old rolling kitchen lumbering toward the front, trying to get near enough to feed the company, and the cook keeping hot food steaming away as the horses dragged the “goulash wagon” over the torn-up, shell-swept roads. Barrages didn’t stop those army cooks.

The cooks fed anyone who was hungry, no matter what his company, though they always looked out for “their boys.”

“Say, I wish that outfit of mine would slow up enough this old cart could catch up with them,” said one worried cook, in typical words. “Believe me, C Company would never quit fighting if they didn’t get a bite of food, but some hot chow would mean new life to them. Let’s speed up a bit more, Jim.”

So Jim, the cook’s assistant who was driving, urged the tired horses onward toward the cannon sounds, while the cook himself hung onto the rear end of the jolting wheeled kitchen, trying at the same time to stir the stew.

“Were you a cook before the war?” the United Press correspondent asked one husky perspiring cook.

“No, I was a salesman – making good money, too,” he replied laughing.

“War brings unexpected changes, doesn’t it?” the correspondent continued.

“In a way, yes. I never figured on being a cook over here,” he said. “But the same principles apply to this job that did in salesmanship. First of all, you have to have the real goods, and then you have to give it to them in the way they like it.”

“Camouflage for ordinary grub, studying what the boys want, using a little diplomacy and giving them plenty – it’s all there is to getting by with this cook’s job. It’s a great life, but the same principles apply as in salesmanship,” the cook added.

The whiff from his kitchen influenced one to accept his hearty invitation to “have a bite with us.”