[Shrek]

This morning she stopped here for breakfast because the café is closed today and tomorrow as it gets new vent hoods put in.

When she got here I was getting the coffee pot ready to perk as I made the steak and eggs.

When she saw me add a dash of salt to the coffee , she looked at me and asked why I salted the coffee, so I explained to her that my father who pulled his share of KP in two wars learned that adding a measure of salt to the big perk pots help take the bitterness of the coffee same as old timers used eggshell calcium as a alkaline to balance the pH of the brew.

I was surprised that after 40 years of cooking she never realized chemistry was the most important factor of cooking.

As we ate our breakfast and she asked me how much salt he added to an army sized pot if I added a dash , I told her he never did say but it had to be at least a tablespoon or two since he said the perk urns they had in his wars were the size of small gas fueled water heaters.

She got to laughing when I told her about him still having one of his own hand written mess hall recipe books from when he was mess sergeant and remembering watching him and my mother downsize some of the recipes to family size from barracks portions.

I told her I remembered asking him why he decided to become a cook after having been in front line units, all he said was he had the skill to change his MOS and after he got his combat points he figured it safer to cut those wanting to shoot him down to only the guys he knew and knew only a bad case of dysentery or running out of ways to cook Spam if supply messed up would make him a target.

When I told her he also reminded me that he figured becoming a mess sergeant and later drill sergeant after he got his points helped ensure that he got to teach me how to cook.

Some folks complain of military mess hall fare just as they complain of hospital cooking but I know more veterans who say the mess hall cooking was as good as home cooking and in my small town growing up , the cafeteria at the local hospital was the Sunday restaurant and we mourned to a degree when the head chef of the hospital resigned to become a chef at the White House in the early 1980s.

 

[cindilu]

Me either, I learned something new today, thanks Shrek.

 

[FarmboyBill]

Wasnt nothing wrong with mess hall cooking. I pulled KP several times, I remember once they had me washing pans down over the hill from the KP unit serving. They would bring down the big pots and pans to be washed as they were emptied. one was black on the bottom. I ws getting hacked off as I was supposed to have help and didn't get it, and I didn't have anything to scour that kind of burnt food off the bottom of the pan. I just looked at it for a bit, then ran my finger down across the pot to see how bad it was encrustwed on. It wasn't. I brought up a lard like dark brown substance. I wandered what kind of army cooking that was and tasted it. It was chocolate. The pan was around 1in deep at the bottom with chocolate. I ate and ate, till I felt myself starting to get sick, and then regretably washed it out.
Nother time we were ourt, and for some reason they had cooked more than they had eaters to eat it. We didn't get to eat till all the soldiers had ate and gone. The mess Sgt told us to eat up and we did. When finished, he told us to eat up again, which we did. On the 3rd time, we finally got it all ate away. But, even then, we had to take with us several pt milk cartons to drink later to get rid of them.
I thought about becoming a army cook, but found I would have to go to Maryland for cook school, for 3 months, so I said the heck with that.
My first gf dad was a army cook in the Pacific. He had become a cook at the Mo State #2 nut house, for the lack of the right name, where his skills could still be used as he had been taught to use them. Like as was said by you Jay. He and his wife would try to figure out how to cut his army receipts for a family. He also did the cooking for his Salvation Army Church.

 

[moonwolf]

Get a Keirug coffee maker. I still grind beans, pour large
teaspoon full into the k cup. Easiest method , simple I ever used.
Makes a good standardized fresh cup every time. No salt added.
At work I make the best coffee in a drip maker. The enemies
of coffee are heat and oxygen. That's why after about 40 minutes
on the hot plate I throw it out and make a fresh pot. High
chlorine or high iron content water also make crappy coffee .

 

[newfieannie]

the first I knew that people put salt in when they are making coffee was when I took my brother-in-law to visit his family just outside Halifax one year. heavens to betsy! it was awful! I was drinking water all that night. I kept drinking the coffee because I didn't know there was salt added. had no idea people did it. I knew there was something wrong though but everyone else was drinking theirs and didn't seem to think there was anything amiss.

I could use a few lessons in making coffee myself. when I have guests they make the coffee themselves knowing me by now. I only drink 100% Columbian instant. never acquired a taste for perked coffee. I have been looking at some of those MW mentioned though and thought I would get one. ~Georgia

 

[Shrek]

Get a Keirug coffee maker. I still grind beans, pour large
teaspoon full into the k cup. Easiest method , simple I ever used.
Makes a good standardized fresh cup every time. No salt added.
At work I make the best coffee in a drip maker. The enemies
of coffee are heat and oxygen. That's why after about 40 minutes
on the hot plate I throw it out and make a fresh pot. High
chlorine or high iron content water also make crappy coffee .

I prefer a stainless steel pot and stanley thermos as a storage carafe to avoid blood sugar raising chemicals (BPH or something like that. Same as bottled water and sodas contain)from the polyester components of that type of coffee maker.

I was given on of those kurigs last year and tossed it in the goodwill bin without even taking it out of the box since I lowered my blood sugar 50 points in two weeks simply by throwing out my Mr. Coffee drip maker in favor of the stainless perk pot a few years back.

 

[TRellis]

Sorry Shrek, but I have never liked the taste of coffee, nor did I ever pull KP. I did have to eat in Army chow halls for the first year or so and then learned to hate C-Rat's and love LRP's.

Some Army chow halls were definitely better than others. There was one particular one on Ft. Bragg that was outstanding. I learned pretty quick to never pass up the opportunity to eat in an Air Force chow hall. They were almost always outstanding.

Trellis

 

[moonwolf]

I don't use BPA plastics. If I pour made coffee into
a drinking cup , it's stainless and vacuumed to keep out
as much air as possible. I pour it off immediately after
making it, whether perked , dripped, or keurigged . Adding
prolonged heat is what destroys real coffee flavour.
I like key rig because it's less waste and fast.

 

[Shrek]

Still has plastic/vinyl components in contact with hot water during brewing but if your blood sugar is low enough to not be prediabetic, enjoy it.

 

[FarmboyBill]

Jay, tell ya what I could eat my weight in, Army SOS

Ive hated coffee since my Aunt Bert gave us some that was green.

 

[Shrek]

SOS was a common breakfast in our household when I was in high school.

If I was running late for school and it was a SOS breakfast day my folks would thicken the crème roux for my serving and put it between two shingles with a omelet style fried egg for my instant breakfast sandwich to eat on my drive to school.

Sometimes it was the higher dollar chipped beef crème roux into stuff to go on the shingles , other times they crème roux'd ground beef, dove breast meat, venison, sausage or bacon. All good stuff to put on a shingle

Whatever meat used, two pieces of toast with cremed stuff on it and a side of a couple eggs was a good breakfast that kept me going through lunch.

Our café version of it is crème chip beef on a 8 inch waffle, which isn't bad but I sometimes ask for 4 slices of toasted white bread instead to enjoy it traditionally.

 

[handymama]

I'll tell y'all one thing. I have spring water. Mom next door has city water. I will seriously make coffee at my house and bring it over there to drink if I'm visiting. We both use folgers classic roast. Its just that her chlorinated water tastes that bad to me.

 

[Shrek]

I'll tell y'all one thing. I have spring water. Mom next door has city water. I will seriously make coffee at my house and bring it over there to drink if I'm visiting. We both use folgers classic roast. Its just that her chlorinated water tastes that bad to me.

That is another advantage of a perk pot to a drip coffee maker. A perk pot can be filled and preheated to eliminate much of the chlorine before the perk basket is placed in the pot for active perking.

Drip coffee makers require use cold water for the sterling convection action through the heating coil/pot warmer.