There is a well known saying « an army marches on its stomach ».
If my son’s experience so far is anything to go by all I can say is that it’s a good job the Swiss army doesn’t have to do a lot of marching.
He’s based in the German speaking part so didn’t have high hopes for the food in general but he wasn’t expecting it to be quite as bad as it is.
Badly cooked food, small portions, weird combinations, not enough to cater for everyone so good luck if you’re the back of the queue etc etc.
He’s not a fussy eater so he eats pretty much anything but even so he’s lost over 7kg in 8 weeks. Some of the others are pretty much surviving on snacks purchased in a local supermarket.
It’s a pity you live in the French part of Switzerland as if your son had been brought up in the Swiss-German part, the awful army food would have been no mystery to him.
Whilst I wouldn’t expect gourmet food in the army, I would expect recruits to be fed enough calories to do their work and with appropriate nutrition. TIS after all, if we can give every pensioner an extra month of AHV, surely we can feed our military recruits enough food?
Indeed. He didn’t have very high hopes when he was assigned to Kloten but this is worse than he could have ever imagined. He is in the only 100% french speaking section amongst a load of Swiss Germans (45 out of 250 total recruits) but even the Swiss Germans are complaining about it.
He was ‘randomly’* chosen for training to become one of the détachement cooks so spent a week learning to cook in a very basic field kitchen. They were given the main ingredients for each meal and some store cupboard essentials and provided with the official army cookbook (in German which luckily he can understand). They took a brief look at the recipes in there and never opened it again.
They cooked their own meals and everyone said it was the best food they’d had since they’d started.
I say ‘randomly’ in inverted commas because the three who were chosen were the only two girls plus my son who had previously had aspirations to become a chef before changing tack and had some kitchen experience.
That’s what all his friends have said, the ones assigned to the french part have no complaints about the food at all whilst in the German part it’s the opposite and Kloten is apparently the worst of all.
One day last week half of his section got a plate of boiled potatoes with sauce on for lunch because they had run out of fish before their turn came round as they are always last to be served.
The barracks there are due to be demolished soon to make way for the airport expansion so hopefully it will be better for future recruits.
Having said that it’s not all bad and he is learning a lot and having fun doing a lot of things he would never have done otherwise.
From all the military MRE´s I know about (meals ready to eat) I think that the NVA had arguably the best there was.
Their Erbseneintopf was out of this world. On a bike ride a few years back heading to Torgau I was riding along a country road in the middle of nowhere and could smell Eintopf from miles away. Indeed a former NVA cook had gotten a complete fieldkitchen and set it up in a clearing and was making Eintopf for hikers and as a gathering point.
Needless to say I did not go hungry for the rest of the day.
You can still get NVA Erbseneintopf from here and I may order some now that this thread has reminded me.
I’m glad you had a good day, rounded off with a hearty and memorable meal. It doesn’t matter to me whether your recollection belongs in this thread or not. We mustn’t become too regimented.
My husband tells me the food was awful during the RS but after that it was much better. The guy in charge of their kitchen was a trained chef so had some elbow room to steer supplies/catering.
He was in the RS in the French part then was mostly in the German part thereafter.
That looks horrible. I dont think I’d even try something like this. @BelgianMum I thought you were exaggerating about Swiss army food but have to agree that it seems horrible! Why don’t they just boil some potatoes and fry some cervelas? Potatoes would look like a treat compared to that…!!!
Unless it is part of some army educational plan to get you used to eating bad food or starve…
Good Lord, that looks truly disgusting. How can a vegetable sauce be brown? My son is doing his WK at end of May. I hope he fares better than that! He usually asks us to send rum, but maybe snacks would be a better option.
