WEBVTT - Navy Cooking at 110$ 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:07.280 You're tuning into service, Johnny, the strict private first class 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:10.959 that are in stories of hunger and war. They joined 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.920 the service. Remember Pearl Harbor. Remember Pearl Harbor, a production 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.759 from My Heart Radio. We used to just give these 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.640 people the food from our mis kits. You ain't what 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.400 you could get, and be thankful well what you will 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:35.960 get in I'm your host. Jacqueline Raposo tracking World War 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.879 Two service stories from men across branches. We've heard intimate 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.199 descriptions of how military food traveled and how much they 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.520 loved or hated this stuff. They used to have something 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.120 like brown Hamburger used to call it ship on the 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.880 S S O S. And the guys used to you great, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.720 but it was so good on frozen kid dates by 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.240 the barrow road, and it's not frozen. We would get 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:04.400 in the good, better or different. So really love the beginning. 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.000 Until these guys learned how to cook all the restings. 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.319 If they were getting like mutton, that's awful shape, neat, 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.520 full of fat, and oh taste terrible. I never want 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:21.480 to eat and I still can't eat this day. Behind 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:26.240 our individual veterans, and they're millions of compatriots where thousands 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.720 of officials working to improve combat cuisine across the board, 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.040 and the final episode of this season, we're going to 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.759 dive deep into the nerdy details of this era's military 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.400 food innovation overall. But today we spend time with a 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.240 Navy veteran whose story shows us how much the men 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:48.920 working with the food actually cared. Ray about well. Was 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.600 a Navy cook stationed in New Jersey towards the latter 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.160 part of the war. As we've heard before, and we'll 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.520 hear him repeat, the Navy boasted the best food of 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.080 all branches, and this was especially true for those docked 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.840 state side. Not only were their kitchens not moving from 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.519 one place to another, but they were first class. And 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:14.000 by when Ray went in, the military had improved upon 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.440 a few elements that had been rocky at the start. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.200 Because before the draft kicked in, the U s. Armed 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.240 forces had to only feed around four hundred thousand troops. 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.160 Within a few years that number soared to over twelve 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.200 million at its peak. It's like asking one friend over 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.120 for dinner and then having the entire army football team 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.000 showing up. Massive amounts of food are needed quickly and 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.480 for a long time, and so that's why we've heard 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.239 of farming shortages and ration restrictions for civilians, and repeated 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:52.760 complaints about certain food stuffs that Mutton lost in Hirosaki mentions. Evidently, 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.760 mutton meat from a sheep at least two years old 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.680 was found on hundreds of menus in the United States 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.320 in the early part of the twentieth century, but the 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.600 military wasn't a discerning purchaser of the meat needed defeat 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.160 at mass, and so the canned stuff that came in 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.640 from Australia that was then cooked stateside were repurposed for 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:15.160 sea rations and shipped overseas. Let's just say anecdotes from 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.799 both military and food historians put Mutton's fall from grace 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.960 in the same blame camp as spam. Neither regained Stateside 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.000 popularity post war because g i s had been flooded 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.120 with the subpar stuff as a regular food for months 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.040 on end, and that orange marmalade Harold bud Long mentioned. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.640 With so many training base camps built in sunny Florida, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:42.160 the citrus industry boomed there, overtaking California, which we've also 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.040 heard was suffering from the lack of interre Japanese workers. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.800 Gallon tins of the stuff were sent to Europe, but 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.320 that doesn't mean it was good. So how did needing 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.640 to make massive amounts of food shaped the service experience 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:02.320 of one individual wartime cook. Let's slow down and here 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.400 a little about this as we spend some time with 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:16.360 Ray Boutwell. My name is Ray Stanley Boutwell. In the Navy, 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:21.400 I became a third class quote. I grew up on 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:27.120 a farm in dang My father's people came here in 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:33.599 sixteen six seveled in Massachusetts. My mother's people came in 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:38.520 sixty They settled in Rhode Island. But the White Ones, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.800 which was my mother's world loyalists, they migrated to Canada 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.240 during the revolution. She was born Canadian, came down here 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.560 and met my father and I was from a family 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.520 of nine boys, so I had eight siblings, no sisters. 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.720 Farm life was quite configurating. It talked to respond possibilities. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.880 One of my job was to brand the livestock every 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.520 day to be melt, who brought the horses at the 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.919 same time each bed. We had a shepherd, so he 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:13.200 heard of the cows. All I had to do is 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.240 open the gates. He closed the gates. That was my 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:21.040 main job, and carrying in would the hook still make 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.600 sure that my mother had enough wood in the kitchen 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:29.039 the last or all day. My mother baked leven loaves 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.600 of bread every other day because she had to pack 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.880 seven lunches the average when I was going to school 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.120 count my father's lunch, so she had to bake eleven 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.880 loads every other day to take care of the lunches. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.040 And what we consumed. We consumed a lot of bread, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.440 We ate a lot of potatoes, and meat was expensive 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.200 in those days. We got bacon, we got salt pork. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.680 My dad was about bread from my mother so that 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.799 she didn't have to bake on Sunday, Monday school lunch 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.760 we had commercial bread. All rest of the time it 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:07.159 was home baked bread. My mother was a fascinated person. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.920 Her mother died when she was only two, and her 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.160 grandmother took care of her and taught her cooked on 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.440 the time she could stand up and put an apron on. 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:21.120 She cooked on open fire oil stoves. There wasn't any 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:26.680 pipe of hooking utensil that she wasn't familiar with. I 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.280 was always interested in what she did in the kitchen 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.159 and what she did in the pantry. And I was 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.560 probably the only boy that went in and worked with 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.160 her probably got in her way. And summertimes she made 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.360 ice cream. She would do cupcakes. You do shea cakes 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.719 ice and tiamat. We have a treat that way. She 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.400 fascinated me because it was the way she produced the 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:57.400 food and the quality of food she produced. It was 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.400 a quiet sunday. We had a quiet dinner. We didn't 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:08.719 even turn on a radio. I saw a friend of mine, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.440 he said, did you know that the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor? 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:17.560 I said, where's Pearl Harbor? I was a freshman in 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.920 high school, old enough to realize what's going to happen, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.760 and it was quite upsetting for my mother and father. 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:31.200 Seven older brothers they all served with two. One was 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.720 four f he had a bad leg. The other one 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.440 was studying to be a minister and he became a 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.840 conscientious objector. But he served as country who worked in 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.840 forestry all during the war, so he did his part. 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:52.920 Rationing was something else. Sugar was one of the big things. 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.280 Most of us didn't consume that much sugar, so my 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.840 dad was able to get enough sugar from whether to 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.640 do her baking. There was a lot of things you 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.160 could not buy. They didn't ration coiling, but we just 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.040 had to find places that were producing going woolf was 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.160 taken out pretty much by the government and their heavy 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.680 coats and then their stocks at plants. Is because they 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:21.760 stopped manufacturing for the war effort. I enlisted while I 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.600 was still in high school because if I waited to 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.000 be drafted, I'd have to take what they gave me. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.520 And I wanted to be in a navy. I heard 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.000 that the Navy's food was better. I didn't want to 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.880 live in a trench. I just thought maybe my living 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:45.000 quartos would be more comfortable. So I was stationed on 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.760 a facility station, the Woodbine Naval Air Stations to the 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.280 Pomona Air Base in the southern part of New Jersey. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:57.480 It's about twenty five miles from Cape May. We trained pilots. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.600 We usually had about five squadrons we were training. I 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.520 went in late into the war. I was going to 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.200 be a toolmaker, but there would be no opening, so 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.560 they stuck me in the kitchen and I worked in 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.959 the Chief Petty Officers mess. They paid just ten dollars 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.160 extra amounts for working in a I was a server. 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.280 I took the Chief Petty Officers order of what he 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.000 wanted to dinner, called it in the window to the 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.600 cook and then to the food to the officers. And 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.880 I had time off after breakfast meal after the dinner, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.280 Neil and I didn't waste my time going to the 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.760 pool room. I went into the kitchen and helped the 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:44.200 cook and tried to learn something. They had sufficient equipment 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.640 to handle whatever the job we needed to complete. We 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:53.199 had reaching freezes, walkings, steam kettle's, We had grills, we 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.200 had ovens, the rehearsed class. We had mixed in machines. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.600 We had go dividers. Some of the officers preferred our 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.760 food over the food in the officers mess at the 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:10.080 main station. They ate an our mess because they liked 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.800 our food better. We were proud of that fact. We 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.840 took a lot of pride and how we did the food, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.839 how we presented the food. Most of the stuff that 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.920 came in from the general mess would be whatever the 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.480 government sent in. I ate in the general mess at 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:32.240 times they had an officer. He was quite innovative. The 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.440 food was really exceptional. Te made sure that the men 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.600 had met at least once a day. I don't know 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.680 how he did it. Sometimes we had fresh vegetables. Most 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.560 of the time it was canned, but the chief petty 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.199 officers and the commissioned officers, they used their own money. 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.440 They would give money to the cook and he would 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.480 buy a lot of the stuff local. They had meat 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.520 balls in spaghetti. They had lobster once a month, fish, 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.679 they had a lot of chicken. The government had experimented 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.560 during her thirties and freezing chicken, and we got a 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.800 lot of chickens that were frozen as far back as 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.839 they just killed the chicken and put it in a 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.040 freezing and clean them. We had to do that. It 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.240 didn't seem to be freeze and burned. They must have 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.600 did flash freezing. But we used chicken that was frozen. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.240 Ten years later, a lot of people were literally about 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.440 eating frozen chicken. I took one frozen chicken to my 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.920 mother in law. I had extra frozen chicken. We want 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.000 to spot. I didn't know it until years later. She 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.080 would not cook it. She gave it to her daughter, 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:51.240 and her daughter said it was the listos. Meat is 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.680 always the most expensive aspect of any menu item, right, 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.920 and this holds true for military foods too, and so 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.120 freezing meat was actually a government experiment before the nineteen 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:08.760 thirties feeding troops for the Spanish American War, in meat 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:13.960 was transported dangling whole carcass in refrigerated cars for those serving. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.400 At the start of World War One. In nineteen seventeen, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.600 future spam In mentor and Army Lieutenant J. Hormel worked 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.120 with the government to set up the first boxed beef 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:28.640 processing plant. They're hacked up, plumped together, frozen and shipped meat. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.200 Bricks took up sixty less space, removed of their fat, 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.280 bones and cartilage, and wage twenty five percent less. But 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:38.640 you know how it goes when you put anything together 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:40.640 in a bag and stick it in your freezer. Right 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.640 later you have to hack and ship away. This made 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.000 for not pretty meat when it got to military cooks 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.400 in France and so yes. By the nineteen thirties we 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.360 had figured out how to separate and flash freeze meat, 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.120 freezing cuts of meat with extremely low temperatures to make 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.240 for smaller ice crystals that when a thought left relatively 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.280 fresh seeming need behind. I couldn't find stats about chicken, 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.840 but the book Combat Ready Kitchen reports that twenty nine 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:15.360 million cattle were sacrificed for troops between nine and ninety alone. 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.079 When we return, we'll hear about Ray transitioning from military 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:47.440 service cooking to hospitality service cooking. Stay with us. You're 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.480 listening to service that are in stories of hunger and 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.800 war from my Heart Radio. I'm Jacqueline Roposo and we're 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.480 with Ray Boutwell at a facility station off of the 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:03.280 Pomona Air Base outside of Atlantic City. It's mind boggling 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.000 to think of days that shift the weight distribution of 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:11.920 the world. December seven, ninety one snatched over sixteen million 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.840 American men from their schools, farms, factories, and families and 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:21.000 plunge them into woolen uniforms and trenches and submarines and 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:27.520 gunnery shacks. August fifteenth n forced the millions of women 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.280 who had patriotically flooded the workforce back into their kitchens 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.720 and closets because fifteen point seven million men were coming home, 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.120 and almost everyone remembered what it was like to have 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.760 little in the jobless Great Depression years they barely survived. 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.240 A Gallop poll released in July of nineteen forty four 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.440 reported that fifty percent of Americans expected unemployment would settle 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.760 between fourteen percent and thirty four percent. Post war, the 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.240 U S. Labor Department projected twenty five people were afraid 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:06.440 of Hitler and hero Hito, but of hunger too, so 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.880 as President Roosevelt, and so in June of that same 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.320 year he signed the g I Belt, promising five million 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.720 dollars for the creation of veterans facilities, unemployment compensation, job 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.040 placement aid, and the education rates and stipends. We heard 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.280 our William Walker mentioned in his episode what About Ray, 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:30.400 Let's head back to the summer of and continue along. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.200 Good evening, everybody. This is Lyle ran with a six 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.680 o'clock report from the NBC News Roll and presented by 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.400 Planters Mixed Nuts. In the headlines, the Allies are discussing 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.440 Japan's offer of surrender provided they can keep their emperor. 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:57.120 No indication from official courses on whether Hirohito mcgoll premature 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.120 celebrations around the world. They played the station that when 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.840 the Japanese surrendered. When I was sent back for air base, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.240 I became a third class cook. As a cook, you 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.640 had to be a butcher as well as a cook. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.320 You had to know how to butcher, you had to 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:18.840 know how to bake. Because nineteen six people were being discharged, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.720 and all the experienced cooks that had service time, they 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.320 were the ones that got out first, and we were 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:31.680 short of qualified cooks, maybe granted very initient kitchen the 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.800 U King. I just studied hard and made up my 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.120 mind I was going to learn to do this stuff right. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:43.080 So I had no problems. We had very good food there. 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.480 I was taught with the first entree that you served, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.400 you put everything you can into it, because that sets 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.960 the impression of the medal. So I usually started off 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.560 with the soup. That was the first thing I served 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.560 the offices was my sup and then we made a 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.240 role to go along with it. We made chicken needle soup. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.280 We made a six or eight different kinds of soup. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.680 Vegetable soup was one of the popular ones that I 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.040 really like to make because it's so diverse, all these 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.879 different vegetables. Sometimes we use the chicken stocks, sometimes we 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.880 use the stock. Be stop seemed to be the more favorite. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.040 Of course, we try to do the best we could 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.960 in every other part of the food, but your first 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:32.600 serving and the dessert, we put all we could into 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.639 that because the first impression and the last impression is 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.920 what really puts the meal over if you've got a dessert, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.119 they really like. You got a soup that they just 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.960 want to eat more of. We've had officers they would 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.080 order two bowls of soup, take our dessert, and they 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.600 wouldn't order anything out. We really could a lot into 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:58.320 the First force in the last Force. So I take 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.639 great pride in what I know. I did not just 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.800 cook it and put it out. And I tasted everything 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.680 I cooked. I don't let it go out unless this 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.560 is going to pass. I tasted it, flavored it. I'm 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.480 not a big person on spices. I'm so used to 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.560 how my mother bay playing simple food. If you're making 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:21.480 a cake, you want it to taste like a cake, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:23.800 you will make any doughnut you want it to day 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.920 is like a doughnut. When I got done cooking, I 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.560 never sat down and an eight a meal because if 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.000 I made biscuits. So if I made something, I had 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.000 eaten so much of the food by just tasting it 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.639 that I was not hunger or did you survived? You 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.600 had to go a hundred and ten percent rather than 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:52.359 a hundred percent that just rubbed off under me. I 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:59.000 was discharged on the fifth of July and cooking and 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.399 the civilian a short thing for me. I went to 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.920 Cookson Baker School. When I got out. When I graduated, 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.879 placement officers that I qualified as a freight coach, and 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.920 he sent me to a hotel in Atlantic City for 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.960 an interview for a job. We discussed different things. Then 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.119 it came to hours. He said, you would come in 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.800 at ten o'clock in the morning, you work until noon, 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.720 and then you have two hours off. You'll come back 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.800 at two. So I called my wife and I said 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.359 that will work be ten more hours. I'll be away 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.240 from home fourteen hours. In no way am I taking 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.080 a job like that. From that day on, I was 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.879 going to be a baker still in their food business. 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.560 I liked it, and that's how come I became a baker. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.400 Ray got married to his wartime sweetheart Rosanna as soon 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.080 as the war ended, and they had one child. He 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.120 worked in bakeries consistently until they took over their own 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:09.240 bakery on their anniversary in nine two, making miniature pastries, cookies, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.000 and two versions of a beloved local Philadelphia butter cake 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.560 that I promised to tell you more about another time. 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.119 He closed the bakery after eighteen years to retire, meaning 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.880 he soon got bored and helped other bakeries out. Rosanna 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.320 passed a few years ago. Ray was painting portraits, but 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.760 was a little bored and a little depressed, and so 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:32.920 he did what any ninety three year old would do. 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:38.520 He opened another bakery, Raised Boozy Cupcakes in Vorheese, New Jersey, 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.639 currently offers Valentine specials like the Runaway Bride with vodka 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:46.680 Kalua and raspberry liqueur, and the Love Potion, a coconut 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.639 cream liqueur cake with amoretto and de Gannash filling his 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.840 next project, opening Caroline's Boozy ice Cream next door, as 0:20:54.880 --> 0:21:00.080 a tribute to his mother, who started it all. I 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.639 just want people to know that I try to give 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.040 him the best product that I can produce, will not 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.000 let them down. I enjoy all the relationship that I 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.040 have with a customer. A man came into the store 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.520 and he says, I saw you on television this morning. 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:19.760 His wife came out and he said, we're going to 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.639 go for a ride today and she says, where are 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.960 we going. He says, We're going to New Jersey. She 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:31.480 says that's six hours away. They lived in Boston. They 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.479 came in the store, they took pictures with me. They 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.080 bought a dozen Boosy cupcakes and drove back to Boston. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.879 I was really humbled and honored that somebody would do that. 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.240 I'm I'm proud of the fact that I was able 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.119 to serve. I hope they lived to be a d 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.200 ten and I accomplished what I set out to do. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.800 You can find more of race story and links to 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:01.000 raise Boozy cupcakes at Service podcast dot org. In our 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.000 next episode, we spend time with sister Melanie Cambick, an 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.480 Army nurse turned none who shares how her immigrant childhood 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.440 left her with an adversion to cabbage and her work 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.840 as one of the Peanut, Butter and Jelly Brigade until then. 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.360 Service as a production from My Heart Radio, where Gabrielle 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.280 Collins is our supervising producer and Christopher hasciotis our executive producer. 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.680 I produced an engineered this episode with Stevebpkin as the 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.119 on site engineer, with Ray. Thank you for subscribing to 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:32.399 and rating Service on your favorite platform after you listen, 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:34.480 and don't forget that you can send a message to 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.679 all of the veterans you here on this show at 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.000 a form at Service podcast dot org. Most of all, 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.439 thank you to those serving and those who have served 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:00.720 six