MATHIEU NICOL
BETTER FOOD FOR OUR FIGHTING MEN
Published by RVB Books, 2022
Size 11 x 17 cm
Softcover
192 pages
92 photographs
BETTER FOOD FOR OUR FIGHTING MEN contains a selection of images, produced mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, from the archives of the US Army's Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center near Boston, Massachusetts. The center is still operational today, and employs both military personnel and civilian contractors in its mission to improve the daily lives—and diets—of American soldiers.
For the world's most formidable army, feeding the troops is fraught with logistical, psychological and food safety challenges. Bacteria is an enemy; supply chains are vital, intricate delivery systems. The goal is to provide sustenance and boost morale across the full range of terrain and troop configurations, from mess halls for the officers and self-service buffets for the rank-and-file to battlefield canteens and survival rations for commandos behind enemy lines.
Solving this logistical puzzle is like trying to stuff a square peg into a round hole: once you have devised ways to optimize the daily nutritional requirements of the bodies in question, you need to work out the best solutions for preserving and transporting the food, and still guarantee a minimum level of flavor to keep the soldiers happy.
A glossary with 24 entries explains some of the acronyms used in the image captions, describes the staples of a typical soldier's diet and traces the new technologies that enabled the food industry to manufacture and supply those rations.
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BETTER FOOD FOR OUR FIGHTING MEN presents a selection of about a hundred images dating from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, from the archives of the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, a research and development center of the American army. In this industrial complex still in operation, military personnel and civilian contractors work to improve the comfort of the soldier in his daily life and his diet.
Feeding the troops is a major logistical, health and psychological challenge for the world's leading army. Here, the enemy is bacteria, and the crux of the matter is supplies, the "supply chain". How do you produce, transport, cook and serve food, in all latitudes and climates, and in all configurations? From the officers' mess to the barracks' self-service, from the field canteen to the individual survival ration in hostile terrain, the challenge is to deliver food that will take care of the troops' physical health and morale. Irradiate, dehydrate, compact, preserve, rehydrate, thermostabilize, reheat, serve... These images document the experiments carried out by the nutritionists and logisticians of this army's "food science lab".
The visual ensemble is completed by a glossary of 24 entries, describing in detail different acronyms found in the captions of the images, evoking elements of the history of the American soldier's ration in the 20th century, and the different technologies developed by the agri-food industry in the manufacture of this collective food.