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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 10, 2014 15:03:51 GMT
Sorry for testing delays here, I've had some time conflicts (and some cold weather, to the "you want to eat something frozen? level of cold). I tried out the whipped evaporated milk the other day. For reference, here's the recipe: It didn't turn out quite as fluffy as whipped heavy cream, I don't know if I should have cranked the mixer to maximum sooner or if that's just how it's supposed to turn out. I'd put the consistency as slightly denser than Cool Whip. There's a bit of a vanilla flavor, but not a lot -- plopping this on top of chocolate cream pie (I had to do something with the rest of the can of evaporated milk ) resulted in almost no vanilla taste, and what there was blended nicely with the chocolate. I'm still digging through the US Navy cookbook I linked to earlier for any mention of unflavored gelatin, but I can document every other ingredient as having been available to the military. Whether a forward air base would have been issued powdered sugar is another question ... but considering that their supplies came in by ship, bartering for some is certainly possible. I also want to see if I can simplify this recipe a bit, and remove the pre-whipping chill. If that base had refrigeration, they didn't need to stick ice cream mix into their airplanes. And on a practical level, the envelopes of gelatin I can get at the grocery store are larger than 1 teaspoon. There were instructions on that envelope on mixing one envelope with one glass of milk or fruit juice as a diet supplement, that might work as something to thicken ice cream. Given the reply Cyber got, I think we could run three simultaneous tests on a single flight: 1) Modified WWII no-stirring ice cream recipe in canisters in the plane 2) A M5- or M7-built stirring rig in a drop tank under one wing, holding evaporated milk and cocoa powder 3) Another drop tank with stirring rig under the other wing, holding commercial ice cream mix Then throw in a batch frozen on the ground in a conventional ice cream maker as control, and whichever team gets this one will be hitting the gym afterwards .
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Post by the light works on Jan 10, 2014 16:03:34 GMT
Sorry for testing delays here, I've had some time conflicts (and some cold weather, to the "you want to eat something frozen? level of cold). I tried out the whipped evaporated milk the other day. For reference, here's the recipe: It didn't turn out quite as fluffy as whipped heavy cream, I don't know if I should have cranked the mixer to maximum sooner or if that's just how it's supposed to turn out. I'd put the consistency as slightly denser than Cool Whip. There's a bit of a vanilla flavor, but not a lot -- plopping this on top of chocolate cream pie (I had to do something with the rest of the can of evaporated milk ) resulted in almost no vanilla taste, and what there was blended nicely with the chocolate. I'm still digging through the US Navy cookbook I linked to earlier for any mention of unflavored gelatin, but I can document every other ingredient as having been available to the military. Whether a forward air base would have been issued powdered sugar is another question ... but considering that their supplies came in by ship, bartering for some is certainly possible. I also want to see if I can simplify this recipe a bit, and remove the pre-whipping chill. If that base had refrigeration, they didn't need to stick ice cream mix into their airplanes. And on a practical level, the envelopes of gelatin I can get at the grocery store are larger than 1 teaspoon. There were instructions on that envelope on mixing one envelope with one glass of milk or fruit juice as a diet supplement, that might work as something to thicken ice cream. Given the reply Cyber got, I think we could run three simultaneous tests on a single flight: 1) Modified WWII no-stirring ice cream recipe in canisters in the plane 2) A M5- or M7-built stirring rig in a drop tank under one wing, holding evaporated milk and cocoa powder 3) Another drop tank with stirring rig under the other wing, holding commercial ice cream mix Then throw in a batch frozen on the ground in a conventional ice cream maker as control, and whichever team gets this one will be hitting the gym afterwards . not sure if they would have equipment to do it, but it IS possible to powder granulated sugar. (I have done it by hand in tiny quantities, it might be possible to do it with a blender with a half cup or so)
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 10, 2014 16:21:05 GMT
C-Ration packs contained sugar tablets as well as sweetened coco-powder (the latter from 1944) and a chocolate bar. (I'm using Wilkipedia as a source here, although in the case of C-Rations there does seem to be a fair number of links backing the information up). Crushing the tablets up to get powdered sugar would not take all that long, and in fact might be better than using packs of powdered sugar as you could grind the sugar into a much finer powder. Which could result in less 'grit' in the finished product.
*Minor light-bulb moment*
It seems that the ration packs were intended for land units in the US Military, but the US Marine Corps - even fighter squadrons - probably classified as such. This might explain why all the stories we have of this reference the Marines rather than the airforce. Simply put they had the right ration packs to use where as the airforce didn't.
One thing that did catch my eye is that there were complaints that the packs were rather monotonous if eaten for any length of time. So this practice of making ice cream would be a good way to give variety, especially once the C-Ration packs started to include such things as powdered orange juice.
Gelatin was not, as far as I can tell, included with the C-Rations. But was probably included in the B-Rations (dried and tinned foods for a larger number of men that required a kitchen to prepare). Unflavoured gelatin would make more sense than flavoured, since it is used as the base for many deserts. So we are probably looking at using a mixture of B and C rations. This would also make more sense of why the stories reference the Marines, since they were probably more likely to have both types available and would most likely have little need to use the C Rations on airfields. Or at least could use ingredients from several C rations without anyone suffering for it.
I think we can omit containers inside the aircraft. The stories seem consistent in the use of drop tanks, and to be honest I suspect that making ice cream inside the aircraft would have been considered too dangerous. If the container leaked inside the aircraft there would be a very real danger of the liquid freezing control cables, fuel pumps ect. At best this would cause a mess someone would have to clean up, and probably take the aircraft out of service for a day - you could not leave the liquid in the aircraft as it would be sticky and could foul control cables. While commanders might be happy to officially look the other way where moral was concerned, they would definitely not ignore something that could take a perfectly operational aircraft out of service. At worst this could and probably would have cost the unit a perfectly good aircraft in a location where they might have to wait months for a replacement. As well as possibly killing the pilot and/or ground crews when the pilot only realises there is a problem as he comes into land.
I think the first question would be if the temperatures inside a drop tank falls low enough to allow ice cream to form.
The second would be to find a viable stirrer design, they'd want to make damn sure the propeller isn't going to fly off at 300 mph and wreck the aircraft.
These two tests would probably be best conducted in an air tunnel, if nothing else this would show them what sort of altitude,speed and time in flight they would need (which could be compared to the performance specifications of the Corsair fighter to make sure what is required is physically possible with that aircraft). They could work this out with a real aircraft, but it would be expensive, time consuming and given them very little footage they could show. (Estimated time between tests with a real aircraft would be some two hours, including flight time, preflight checks, post-flight checks, physically changing the drop tanks, refuelling and getting flight clearance - the latter potentially being the biggest hurdle as far as conducting tests for a day or two are concerned).
Once they have this information they can start to look at testing this in the real world, as they should have enough information to allow them to test this with only one or two flights.
While MB could make drop tanks themselves, I wonder if it might not be a better idea to get someone to make a batch for them? Legally I wonder if MB-made tanks would be allowed to be used without a detailed inspection, or if a pilot would be willing to use such tanks. Besides, it also means that if anything does go wrong with the tanks MB can't be held to blame. Practically (or production-wise) it may be quicker to buy the tanks from elsewhere, other than possibly some small scale tanks used for bench/wind-tunnel testing which would help pad the episode out. Give then a 'build' segment and allow them to talk about how such tanks were made - the latter would in fact be important since a lot of people would probably jump to the conclusion that the tanks were made from metal and use that as the basis of their complaints.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 10, 2014 18:36:27 GMT
Didn't phrase that very clearly, sorry -- I was assuming purchased drop tanks, with just the stirring rig built by the MBs.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 10, 2014 19:20:55 GMT
I'm still digging through the US Navy cookbook I linked to earlier for any mention of unflavored gelatin, but I can document every other ingredient as having been available to the military. And the search is over -- page 236 has a recipe for Tomato Aspic that calls for 1 1/2 cups of unflavored gelatin. Every ingredient was available. According to some cooking sites, you can turn regular sugar into powdered/confectioners sugar with either a blender or a mortar and pestle. Military cooking utensils were normally metal, it would be easy enough to fake up a mortar and pestle.
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Post by c64 on Jan 10, 2014 19:49:11 GMT
Military cooking utensils were normally metal, it would be easy enough to fake up a mortar and pestle. Depends. The aluminum stuff is too soft to do that. But there is always the caveman method using a round stone in a stone corrie (or a hubcap).
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 10, 2014 21:01:13 GMT
Or just take an old used tin and use one of the many long handled implements available on an airbase - such as a spanner. No need to be concerned about having to reuse the tin as you'd have plenty of new ones to choose from next time around.
It seems that everyone is forgetting that manpower is not going to be a major concern here, I'd guess that they'd have men lining up to crush sugar in their off hours if they would get an extra scoop of ice cream for their troubles. No need for blenders or other equipment, just elbow grease.
Heck, come to think on it why bother crushing the sugar up in the first place? You'd need to dissolve the coco-powder (or flavouring of choice) in hot water anyway. So why not just drop the sugar tablets into the hot water/coco and let it dissolve?
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Post by the light works on Jan 11, 2014 0:52:01 GMT
Or just take an old used tin and use one of the many long handled implements available on an airbase - such as a spanner. No need to be concerned about having to reuse the tin as you'd have plenty of new ones to choose from next time around. It seems that everyone is forgetting that manpower is not going to be a major concern here, I'd guess that they'd have men lining up to crush sugar in their off hours if they would get an extra scoop of ice cream for their troubles. No need for blenders or other equipment, just elbow grease. Heck, come to think on it why bother crushing the sugar up in the first place? You'd need to dissolve the coco-powder (or flavouring of choice) in hot water anyway. So why not just drop the sugar tablets into the hot water/coco and let it dissolve? my question was whether a big enough field kitchen to use B rations would have a blender. but yes, simply dissolving the sugar would be much easier.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 11, 2014 13:53:15 GMT
Heck, come to think on it why bother crushing the sugar up in the first place? You'd need to dissolve the coco-powder (or flavouring of choice) in hot water anyway. So why not just drop the sugar tablets into the hot water/coco and let it dissolve? Actually, when I did the first flavored-with-cocoa test, I didn't dissolve it first. I just added it to the evaporated milk and ran the blender until everything was mixed.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 11, 2014 15:33:20 GMT
Or just take an old used tin and use one of the many long handled implements available on an airbase - such as a spanner. No need to be concerned about having to reuse the tin as you'd have plenty of new ones to choose from next time around. It seems that everyone is forgetting that manpower is not going to be a major concern here, I'd guess that they'd have men lining up to crush sugar in their off hours if they would get an extra scoop of ice cream for their troubles. No need for blenders or other equipment, just elbow grease. Heck, come to think on it why bother crushing the sugar up in the first place? You'd need to dissolve the coco-powder (or flavouring of choice) in hot water anyway. So why not just drop the sugar tablets into the hot water/coco and let it dissolve? my question was whether a big enough field kitchen to use B rations would have a blender. but yes, simply dissolving the sugar would be much easier. As best as I can tell blenders were not used by the military. This seems logical, as blenders needed electricity which would not have been available to front line units who in any case would have been using ration packs. Kitchens in rear areas might have had electricity, but then these would have been feeding hundreds if not thousands of men per day - so the blender would have needed to be huge. Food trucks circa 1944 were equipped with a gasoline stove (it could also use wood), and may have had a trailer that contained an ice box - the implication is that this was simply an insulated box, not a refrigerator, used to store some perishable items. No evidence of the trucks being equipped with any electrical items. www.seabeecook.com/equipment/field/kitchen_truck44.htm
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Post by the light works on Jan 12, 2014 3:13:17 GMT
US "Deuce and a half" trucks have a PTO... more seriously: "The mess steward must train mess personnel to prepare and cook food in a moving truck. He must stress safety measures. Cooking may be done by almost any method except deep-fat frying. Food should never be deep-fat fried while the truck is moving because sudden stops or jerky movements of the truck may cause hot grease to splash on personnel and cause serious injury. Truck vibration prevents the preparation of cakes and yeast-leavened doughs, but pies and biscuits may be baked en route." now we know why they call it "mess"
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Post by c64 on Jan 12, 2014 20:17:47 GMT
US "Deuce and a half" trucks have a PTO... more seriously: "The mess steward must train mess personnel to prepare and cook food in a moving truck. He must stress safety measures. Cooking may be done by almost any method except deep-fat frying. Food should never be deep-fat fried while the truck is moving because sudden stops or jerky movements of the truck may cause hot grease to splash on personnel and cause serious injury. Truck vibration prevents the preparation of cakes and yeast-leavened doughs, but pies and biscuits may be baked en route." now we know why they call it "mess" In the German Army, the food is either cooked centrally and delivered by truck or the soldiers eat the Combat Rations. They still use the goulash-cannon but not in general. It's simply filled with all the ingredients and then the meal cooks while driving and it is towed by a vehicle like a cannon. That's why it's called "goulash-cannon", because the best you can hope to get is a tasty goulash (or pea soup) and it's dragged like a cannon.
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Post by the light works on Jan 12, 2014 22:27:14 GMT
US "Deuce and a half" trucks have a PTO... more seriously: "The mess steward must train mess personnel to prepare and cook food in a moving truck. He must stress safety measures. Cooking may be done by almost any method except deep-fat frying. Food should never be deep-fat fried while the truck is moving because sudden stops or jerky movements of the truck may cause hot grease to splash on personnel and cause serious injury. Truck vibration prevents the preparation of cakes and yeast-leavened doughs, but pies and biscuits may be baked en route." now we know why they call it "mess" In the German Army, the food is either cooked centrally and delivered by truck or the soldiers eat the Combat Rations. They still use the goulash-cannon but not in general. It's simply filled with all the ingredients and then the meal cooks while driving and it is towed by a vehicle like a cannon. That's why it's called "goulash-cannon", because the best you can hope to get is a tasty goulash (or pea soup) and it's dragged like a cannon. the articles linked indicated that it was preferred to cook at the central area, and then deliver, but the truck was designed such that the stoves could be used while the truck was in motion.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jan 12, 2014 22:46:16 GMT
Of course you are talking about army messes, things on a forward airbase would be somewhat different.
I was using the mess trucks to see what types of equipment messes would have possessed, figuring that a forward base in the middle of no where would most likely have access to the same type of equipment - especially the Marine Corps as that seems to be where the story originated.
An educated guess would be that the bases in question, which seem to have been located in the middle of no where, would have not been able to get much if anything in the way of fresh supplies. Unless they could trade for items with local villages, which would explain why some recipes mention milk while others talk about condensed milk. They may have been able to get fresh milk locally*.
Equipment wise I seriously doubt they would have possessed any electrical items, if only because I'd suspect that there was no electrical power to run them. In fact I seem to recall mentions of runway lighting being provided by fires and flares not electrical lighting in that part of the world. This seems logical, given than any generators available would have been for the radio and mobile radar units - and somehow 'we turned it off to make milkshake' doesn't strike me as something you'd want to tell the brass after your airfield was surprise-bombed into rubble.
(*Of course that raises the question as to if the recipes we have would work with, say, goats milk as well as cows milk....)
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Post by Antigone68104 on Mar 21, 2014 14:45:00 GMT
I just tried tweaking the whipped evap recipe to remove the cooking part ... and it didn't work. Even after sticking the bowl in the fridge overnight, I still had liquid evaporated milk with partly-dissolved gelatin at the bottom.
OTOH, if we're having the team build a stirring rig to go in a drop tank, I don't think we need the whipped cream/whipped evap. I'm pretty sure it was in the recipe I started with to make the end product a little lighter, since it was being frozen in a regular freezer with no stirring.
I've also finally found a rotary hand mixer, without having to go to a specialty cooking shop. It's not identical to the egg beaters that a WWII kitchen (even one at a forward base) would have had available, but it works the same. So if I can get my hands on an ice cream maker, I can test the basic recipe from the original myth, cocoa powder and evaporated milk.
Google is giving me prices all over the map for an electric ice cream maker, everything from $30 to $300+. Anyone have recommendations? I'm looking at the smaller ones, I have no need for a 4-quart ice cream maker when it's just me in the household.
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Post by the light works on Mar 21, 2014 15:12:49 GMT
I just tried tweaking the whipped evap recipe to remove the cooking part ... and it didn't work. Even after sticking the bowl in the fridge overnight, I still had liquid evaporated milk with partly-dissolved gelatin at the bottom. OTOH, if we're having the team build a stirring rig to go in a drop tank, I don't think we need the whipped cream/whipped evap. I'm pretty sure it was in the recipe I started with to make the end product a little lighter, since it was being frozen in a regular freezer with no stirring. I've also finally found a rotary hand mixer, without having to go to a specialty cooking shop. It's not identical to the egg beaters that a WWII kitchen (even one at a forward base) would have had available, but it works the same. So if I can get my hands on an ice cream maker, I can test the basic recipe from the original myth, cocoa powder and evaporated milk. Google is giving me prices all over the map for an electric ice cream maker, everything from $30 to $300+. Anyone have recommendations? I'm looking at the smaller ones, I have no need for a 4-quart ice cream maker when it's just me in the household. I think all of the smaller ones are going to be hand cranked. my brother used to have one that did about 3 servings. you stored the liner in the freezer, and that provided the cold to freeze the ice cream. worked pretty good as long as you remembered to crank one turn every 30 seconds or so. if you forgot, it would stick the scraper to the side. but admit it, you really want THIS one. www.lehmans.com/p-715-small-ice-cream-trailer.aspx
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Post by Antigone68104 on May 21, 2014 15:30:10 GMT
UpdateThis was delivered Monday, and the insert has been sitting in the freezer since then. I was going to run the next test batch last night, but discovered that can in the cupboard was sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated. I'll try to get the test batch (just evaporated milk and cocoa mix) run tonight or tomorrow night. Something I noticed in the instruction manual was that it's officially a 1 1/2 quart machine, but they tell you not to put more than 1 quart in it to allow room for the mix to freeze. I don't know if that two-thirds max is a general rule. If it is, well, the smaller drop tanks used during Operation Vengeance (the attack on Admiral Yamamoto's plane) held about 150 gallons of fuel, so we're looking at around 100 gallons of ice cream mix. I really hope you can still buy evaporated milk in number 10 cans, because opening enough 12-ounce cans to make this is going to cause hand cramps.
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Post by Cybermortis on May 21, 2014 17:05:00 GMT
They would probably use an electric opener. I think Antigone deserves an honourable mention for doing all of this testing at home. It's tough I know to have to deal with all the ice cream afterwards...
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Post by the light works on May 21, 2014 17:13:11 GMT
They would probably use an electric opener. I think Antigone deserves an honourable mention for doing all of this testing at home. It's tough I know to have to deal with all the ice cream afterwards... I think she deserves better than that. {Check the general board - CM}
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Post by Antigone68104 on May 22, 2014 0:28:56 GMT
What can I say, I want to see this on the air.
And,
Report
Two 12-ounce (.35 liter) cans of evaporated milk, eight 0.7 ounce (19.8 gram) envelopes of Swiss Miss cocoa. It only took a couple minutes with my hand beater to get a nice smooth mix.
The manual said to pre-chill the ice cream mix before putting it in the machine, I didn't because those soldiers wouldn't have been able to. After around 40 minutes in the ice cream maker, it started the back-and-forth that means it's at maximum freeze.
It came out a little softer than Dairy Queen soft-serve, but still recognizably ice cream. It actually set up a bit in the machine after I turned it off, probably because the inner liner was still frozen and was continuing to chill the ice cream. I'd be surprised if the metal of a drop tank were thick enough to get this effect.
Unlike some previous homemade ice creams I've eaten, there were no water ice crystals in the ice cream. It was cold, creamy, chocolaty, and with a bit of a malted-milk flavor.
--- The store-brand evaporated milk I've been using has a pop-top opening, but I looked at the name brands and they all require a can opener. That should be easier on the hands, though it may be worth checking a restaurant supply company for larger cans of evaporated milk just for convenience.
While I was waiting for this to freeze, I checked a couple online companies selling MRE cocoa mix. The envelopes are roughly twice as large as the envelopes I was using. If WWII ration pack cocoa mix was the same size as the modern MRE variety, they could cut the amount by 1/2.
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