Sunday, 31 August 2025

Ten Things I Learned From The Air Force Chow Hall Over 22 Years

1.  If you walked in with low expectations....you were always happy.

2.  Yes, there were always random food poisoning events (1977 @  Sheppard AFB...they had to shutdown the chow-hall for a weekend and throw everything out).

3.  There's a rotating schedule of  x-dinners.....once you figured this out....you could mark off 12 evening dinners a month as 'crap'.

4.  Approximately 50-percent of the time....whatever pastry they had for breakfast....was probably 3 days stale/rock-hard.

5.  Chicken always came out of a freezer-bag and was crap.

6.  In the first five years of my military time.....for lunch, I either ate grilled ham/cheese sandwiches or hamburgers. It was the only thing they made in front of you....that you felt was not screwed-up.

7.  Mid-night chow was probably the best meal to attend...but around 1980...they made a rule you had to be on duty and in a uniform.

8.  I can't think any coffee worse, than chow-hall coffee.

9.  From my first ten years of using their 'service'....I got the  impression that none of the chow-hall cooks were skilled in anything other than opening cans and heating food.

10. The best chow-hall I ever used....was a the Incirlik-Turkey operation....appropriately named 'Satans-Inn'.  Most of the cooks were Turks and they were pretty liberal with herbs/spices.

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