COOKING

Almost as soon as the First Echelon arrived in Maadi Camp, the GOC started a cookery school to run courses for unit cooks, the instructors initially being drawn from the British Army. The school continued throughout the war as part of the ASC training establishments, and was of inestimable value in training cooks to make the best of the ration – so much so that the idea got round the various parties of attached British troops that there was a special New

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Zealand ration, which was not the case. We drew the ordinary British ration, but we made better use of it. There was also in Maadi a pie bakery and an ice-cream factory, later combined into a Catering Depot. Pies and ice-cream are good things; but in this case they were entirely for the benefit of troops in and around Cairo, or at most in Egypt, which was a pity. In any case, they verged on being pure luxuries.