Pictorial Travel Diary - Day 2 - Mess Hall

Pictorial Travel Diary - Day 2 - Mess Hall
Originally uploaded by Nana S

“MESS HALL
‘I did not like waiting in line to eat and I did not like the food. I hated canned green beans, spinach, pork and beans, squid tough as rubber…
Many times I refused to take a bite, even though my mother would make me sit for an hour.’
Joyce Nakamura, recalling mealtime at Manzanar, 2000”

“Shiro Nomura remembered, ‘I awoke to the sharp clanging of bells…a large brake drum hung from the corner of each mess hall and the noisy clanging was the daily call to chow.’ Three times a day, internees lined up for meals served cafeteria-style. ‘Family meals soon became a forgotten practice for children ate with their playmates or tried different dining halls,’ recalled Kazuyuki Yamamoto.”

“While every chef had the same ingredients to work from, the quality of food varied greatly among mess halls. Initially, the Army supplied mess halls with foods uncommon in the diet of most Japanese Americans. Wartime rationing further limited menu options. Eventually, the WRA became the nation’s largest purchaser of rice, and by 1943, Manzanar’s extensive agricultural operation produced thirty-two kinds of vegetables and fruits, pork, chicken, eggs, and beef. Internees manufactured soy sauce, tofu, Japanese pickles, bean sprouts, miso, dehydrated vegetables, and maple syrup. Although WRA policy prohibited alcohol, some internees built makeshift stills to ferment rice and sugar into sake.”