Topic: Army Rations
Fudge Block Army Ration (1941)
Piece de Resistance Gives Food Value and Satisfies Sweet Tooth
Reading Eagle, Reading, Pennsylvania, 10 July 1941
Atlanta, July 10 (AP)—The piece de resistance of "iron rations" issued American soldiers on the arch is a domino-size fudge block—a sugary hunk that packs 125 calories of energy.
The army itself concocted the recipe for the one-ounce piece of candy serving the dual purpose of packing in the food value and satisfying the fighting man's sweet tooth. Vitamin C in the form of brewer's yeast is added in the ingredients of corn sugar and cane sugar, chocolate, vegetable fat, powdered egg albumen and powdered milk.
New Item on Display
This new item was on display along with an innovation in lollipops—a sucker employing a cord loop instead of a stick so the stumbling youngster won't spike his throat—in the exhibit room of three candy conventions in progress here.
The candy industry is gearing its production line to the national defense theme in two other items, said Philip C. Gott, of Chicago, president of the National Confectioners Association.
One is a four-ounce high vitamin candy block for parachute troopers and the other a salty gum drop fed to soldiers in sultry sections to replace body salt lost through perspiration.
The candies made for the army are not available to civilian retail trade, Gott said. Manufacturers who wish to bid on them obtain the recipes from the Quartermaster Corps, and rigid inspection is conducted, he added.
Given Exhaustive Trial
The type C or "iron rations" menu got an exhaustive test in the recent Tennessee maneuvers and the Fourth Corps Area quartermaster's office here, which feeds one-third of the U.S. Army, reported "excellent results."
Three of the one-ounce candy blocks go into a day's "iron rations" and other items include meat, vegetables, biscuits and soluble coffee. All are canned, conserving space and load.
"We could concoct a chemically pure food for soldiers, which the boys wouldn't eat—the army's food has to taste good," Lieut. Col.Rohland A. Isker said of the candy ration. Isker is in charge of the subsistency research laboratories of the army.
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