THE ARMY SERIES : OUR FOOD

One reason why I decide to blog about my army days is because it reminds me of the things that I am blessed with. Every time I feel down, I think back about the army and it reminded me. No days can be worse than the army days. So if I can survive being in the army for 17 years, I can survive anything. 

Today’s post is about food. Why am I reminded about food? Because I have been on a tight budget since covid hits. I thought that everything will be ok when it gets better but 2022 didn’t do any better with my finances. So I have been budgeting with my expenditure and one of those affected is food. I miss eating good healthy food. In Singapore, healthy foods are expensive. Halal foods are tasty but most of the time unhealthy. There really should be more halal foodstalls that sells those economy rice mix thing that I always see in Chinese stalls. But nope. None. The closest is the very expensive nasi padang which isnt actually nasi padang. And they’re always oily. 

I looked back at the photos of army cookhouse food. Now at this age, how I didn’t count my blessings then. Oh how I would love to eat the cookhouse food everyday again. They are nutritious and healthy. 

So here is a tribute to the army food.
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THE COOKHOUSE

​Before I entered the army, I heard stories of how army foods were terrible and cooked by army cooks. But by the time I was enlisted, the system has changed. 

13th June 2000, I stepped on the shores of Pulau Tekong. The cookhouse was run by the Singapore Food Industries if I remember correctly. Being a young person who was choosy about everything, of course it didn’t taste nice. But now looking back, I can eat those food everyday. You can google the photos. I don’t have any.

I can eat this everyday now. No complains.

Breakfast. There was always 2 choices. Local or Western. 

Local would be mi siam or mi rebus or mi soto or pau or glutinous rice or something. 
Western would be bread or croissant or eggs with peanut butter and jam. So so blessed. 
Drink would be a choice of coffee or tea or milo.

Lunch and dinner.

Always rice with fish and red meat (beef / mutton) and chicken and vegetables and soup and dessert (fruits or ice cream) and free flow of syrup drink.

Sometimes on random days, we might get chicken chop or horfun or something. Most of us look forward to western.

Damn, I’m hungry now writing all these.

Singapore Food Industries (SFI) wasn’t the only caterer. I’ve been to many camps and I saw some places engaged NTUC Foodfare and SATS. 

It is really very good. Really. Much better than nasi padangs. Definitely healthier.

But not all were tasty of course. Actually they are all edible. Except one place.

I’ve been despatched to these camps. 

Pulau Tekong BMTC
Pulau Tekong SISPEC
Pasir Laba Camp
Bedok Camp
Amoy Quee Camp
Jurong ITI Camp
Clementi Camp

Here’s my take. Pulau Tekong BMTC has (or maybe had) the best food. Clementi Camp was the worst. My 9 days ot Clementi Camp, I ate my own snacks and food brought in from out of camp. They were terrible.
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Real image from my own camera of the terrible tasting Clementi Camp food

COMBAT RATIONS

Then comes the Combat Rations.

Again I heard stories of how terrible it was. But not for me. They were really good. Give me combat rations now, I’ll gladly eat them. 

So what’s in it? You can google this too.

It is a pack filled with dietary needs when you’re out in the field. One pack is a 24 hour meal. So if you’re out in the jungle for 5 days, they will give you 5 packs. 

What is in the pack. 
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2 main meals in a green pack.
1 dessert in a green pack.
4 packs biscuits.
2 packs fruit bars.
1 sachet pocari sweat.
1 sachet lemon tea.
1 sachet coffee or milo.
1 packet maggi instant noodles.
Matches, tissue, the candle looking thing to cook your meals.

The first time I opened a combat ration, the main meal were pasta bolognaise and glutinous rice. The dessert was red bean like bubur kacang like that. Awesome. After a while you kind of got sick of its taste. But then again like I said, give them to me now, I will gladly eat them everyday.

It’s by luck. You can random dish in your 3 packets. Sometimes briyani, different kinds of pastas, different tastes of glutinous rice. The desserts are red bean, bubur terigu was the most common. My favourite was green bean. Real bubur kacang.

As for maggi noodles. You almost never get the curry flavour. I have no idea why. We always get prawn or chicken or asam laksa. Almost never curry.

Every pack weighs 3kg.

So if you’re out in the field for 5 days, you will have 15kg of food in your bag.

Being in a Guards unit, it was almost impractical to load all those weight in our backpacks. If you remember, I have to lug 30 to 40kg of load on my 60kg body frame everytime we go outfield. It was torture. So we only brought what we could and what we would eat. 

So what did I bring?

Dessert pack
Biscuits
Fruit bars
Lemon tea, pocari sweat, milo sachets
1 pack of instant noodles.

I didn’t bring the main dishes with me. 

They are lighter on the load. Sometimes I will bring snickers. They are good energy boosters.

Here’s how we eat them. It’s quite cool considering we usually have no time to properly eat them. We only eat them on the go or when we were in defence. We definitely had no time to cook. Except in Brunei.

The green packs, tear the top and pour into our mouth.

Biscuits, small tear on the top of the packets and the right amount of water and soak it. Too much and it will be bleargh…. just nice and it will turn into a cake like texture. Very nice.

Fruit bars. Just eat. This was our favourite. Usually the first to finish.

Lemon tea or peach tea, pocari sweat and milo. We cannot pour them into our water bottles as it will “dirty” the inside of our bottles. We won’t have time to wash them. So we will pour the powder into our mouth, hold it and then drink water. Pour again and drink water again. For milo, I will just eat them.

Maggi. Sigh… so delicious but never have time to cook them. So we’ll just pour the seasoning into the packets, crush the noodles, shake it and eat them like how we eat mamee.

So yes, that’s how we eat them. Like I said, I have been budgeting on food so if you have any jobs for me to do, please let me know. I need money. Currently I am scavenging part time jobs here and there. Not so bad, I still have just enough to live through pay check to pay check. But if you have anything stable for me, do let me know. Thank you. 


Next Week : Standard Obstacle Course

Categories : The Army Series
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