Soldiers Poor Cooks

In those Crimean days our soldiers had no knowledge of cooking-, being in this respect far behind the French and Turks. But even had our men been perfect cooks they would have had but little opportunity of exercisingr their skill. Camp kettles were issued at Kalamita bay, when the troops lan&ed. In the proportlon of one to flve men. Now, the kettle would cook fresh, but not salt meat for flve men, as more water is required to extract the brlne from salt meat than the kettle could hold, and, moreover, this number (five) represented nothing then, nor does it now, in our regimental systems. Most of the kettles had been dropped at the Alma or in the subsequent march, and the soldiers for all cookingr purposes to a mess tin which each man carried on hls back. These were inadequate. The llds, perhaps, were most prized, for when the body is wet and cold there is a craving for a hot drink, and it took less time and fuel to roast the green coffee berries in the lid than to boil the salt meat in the body of the tin. It had not occurred to any one in the department then responsible for our commissariat that to make a mug of coffee out of green berries roasting and grinding apparatus was essential, and till January, when some roasted coffee was landed, our men might be seen pounding with a stone or round shot the berries in a fragment of exploded