From France came calls for tomatoes and men, men and tomatoes. This phrase did not mean that bread and bacon, beans and beef, should be eliminated; but it emphasized the importance of this one vegetable, the tomato. The total purchases of tomatoes exceeded those of all other vegetables combined. In addition to the many ways of serving tomatoes, they were used in the trenches to relieve thirst, being, perhaps, more effective than any other substitute for water. Because of its food value and slight acidity, a quart of tomato juice was worth several quarts of water to the thirsty men in the field. The Army took 45 per cent of the total 1918 American pack of tomatoes. These tomatoes were bought from 5,000 firms scattered throughout the rural districts of the United States.
The demands of the overseas forces for meat during the summer of 1918 were so heavy that they created a shortage of beef in the United States. Beef is the mainstay of the soldier's diet. The Army allows 456 pounds of beef per year for each soldier. This does not mean that the soldier actually eats that much beef, beef being simply the Army's meat standard. Pork, usually in the form of bacon, is substituted for 30 per cent of this quantity of beef, 12 ounces of bacon being considered the equivalent of 20 ounces of beef. The major portion of the American Expeditionary Forces' beef was fresh beef shipped frozen all the way from the packing plants in the United States to the company kitchens at the front, through an elaborate system of cold-storage warehouses and refrigerator cars and ships.
The Food Administration asked that the people substitute corn meal, rye flour, and other grain flour for 20 per cent of the wheat flour ordinarily used in making bread. The troops in the United States complied with this ruling and saved 1,000,000 barrels of flour. The use of substitutes in France was not insisted upon, as bread making in the field is more difficult. Field bakeries are not adapted to experimenting with doughs and yeasts, as is required when substitutes for flour are used. The Army allowance of flour for a year for one man is 410 pounds. Flour was usually issued in the form of bread, 1 pound of bread being allowed for each man each day. Other yearly allowances are 56 pounds of beans, 27 pounds of prunes, 27 pounds of coffee, 73 pounds of sugar, 11½ pounds of condensed milk, 3½ pounds of vinegar, and 13½ pounds of salt. For variety other items are specified which may be substituted for these foods.
Food was purchased by the Quartermaster's Department and furnished to the individual companies at cost of the food. In charge of the mess was a sergeant, who had had special instruction in schools as to methods of feeding the Army. The mess sergeant checked over his stocks daily and made up a list of what he would require for the coming day. This list, in turn, was given to the camp supply officer, under whose direction the order was made up and delivered to the kitchen on Army trucks.
This order was based on a ration allowance, as has been stated, a ration being the food required to subsist one man for one day. The general components of the overseas camp ration consisted of the following:
The ration at home was practically the same. The home ration, however, did not include candy and tobacco. The commanding officer had authority to modify or change all rations to meet special conditions. For instance, in times of great cold and when the men were subject to great exposure, or after long and tedious campaigns or marches, or when the work required of the troops was abnormal, the ration might be increased. The ration also included soap, candles, matches, towels, and a few other items considered necessary in the daily life of a soldier. The value of a ration fluctuated with the market from month to month. Each day's food weighed about 4.6 pounds per man.
The men actually in the trenches sometimes made use of the emergency ration, the little flat can of compressed nourishment which every soldier carried in his pocket. This ration, however, was used only in severe straits, on the order of an officer, or on the enlisted man's own responsibility in the direst emergency, when the activity of the enemy made it impossible to get hot food to the men during daylight hours. Hot food was served in the trenches whenever possible. The hot food consisted principally of soups and soluble coffee. Specially constructed cans, made on the principle of thermos bottles, kept the food hot when it was being carried to the front. The chief quartermaster of the American Expeditionary Forces relates that on a tour of inspection made by him, during the Argonne-Meuse offensive, on November 1, 1918, he inspected the meals served at noon to the troops of the Fifth Corps actually engaged in battle on that day, and found in a number of cases that Artillery organizations were being served beefsteak, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, white bread and butter, rice pudding, and hot coffee, the men eating in reliefs in order that there might be no cessation of fire. The hot meals for the Infantry were prepared at their rolling kitchens a short distance in rear of the line, and sent forward to them in "marmite" cans.
The company was the unit on which the feeding of the men was based. Each month the company was given credit at the quartermaster's store equal to the number of men in the company multiplied by thirty times the ration allowance. On the basis of this credit the mess sergeant of the company made purchases to feed his men. He might be as economical as he desired, provided that he fed the men sufficiently. If the entire credit extended him at the camp quartermaster's office was not used up during the month, a check was given for the difference. This went into the company's funds, with which the mess sergeant might buy in the open market such extras and delicacies as the savings would permit, up to the quantity specified in the ration.
But this system was followed only in the United States. Savings were not allowed in France, all food there being issued on a straight ration basis. This was due to the fact that the shortage of tonnage made it imperative that no article not absolutely essential be shipped from the United States, while difficulties of transportation in France necessarily eliminated all except the most essential articles of food.