AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 268 of 332 11 Orange Bomb Alert Onboard Cmde Aspi Cawasji NM VSM Genre: Reminiscence hey say an army marches on its stomach, but a submarine? Well food is a very important subject on a submarine. Right from the time rations are ordered prior to a voyage, to the time they are supplied, during which the chef’s perform a very stringent inspection of the quality of fruits and vegetables supplied, to the time it is loaded inside the cold and cool rooms carefully, it is considered top priority work. It is a daunting task for the Executive officer to plan a menu for six weeks of sailing in advance and try to cover cuisines from all corners of the country. It is a well-known fact that submariners cannot eat normal food that land lubbers do because they cannot have any fried or sautéed food inside due to the fumes emanated and also more so for fear of clogging the ventilation ducts. So submariners live a life without ‘tadka’ underwater. A very black and white life, a life bereft of the colours of flavour, in my opinion. Our chef’s prepare the same curry that others eat on land, but it will not have that zing of ‘tadka’. Hence, submariners have got used to eating boiled eggs instead of fried eggs, boiled stuff instead of fried stuff, boiled onions substituted for fried onions, bread instead of chapatis or parathas as these are considered a luxury onboard. Of course, these days, they are able to eat frozen parathas available in the market, but in the days of yore, all we got were some leathery poories packed in tins supplied by nameless defence food laboratories. The present day potato boiler in the galley has been modified to make idlis to be indulged once in a while underwater. In fact, I recall the time when sacks of onions were supplied, our chefs and a few volunteers used to peel and cut these onions on the submarine open deck itself in harbour prior to taking them below and making packets of diced onions to be used underwater. Because the onion fumes underwater would make the whole submarine cry as the recirculated air would reach all corners of the boat. It could lead to blurred vision on the periscope and endanger any mission. Of course, these days, desiccated onions are the norm. Milk was another commodity which used to finish within a few days. In earlier times, milk was supplied in large milk cans which used to be kept in the cold room (freezer) frozen solid and I still remember, the chef taking an ice pick along into the walk-in freezer to break off chunks of frozen milk to make coffee every day. The modern day tetra pack milk ensures that submariners can drink coffee for the entire duration of the sortie with this long life milk. T