USS Toledo Sub Chef

earlier this week we took a tour of the USS Toledo and found out what it's like to be a Submariner Fox 61's John Charlton spent the night on board with the crew living in the tightest and tiniest quarters tonight he shows us what it's like for the man who has to cook in those tight spots every cook in the Navy experiences it especially when their ship set sail for months at a time but as you can imagine it's much harder on board a submarine Fox 61 John Charlton savored the seafood onboard the USS Toledo and has more now on that experience John villarica on a submarine a cook is the griller the fryer the Baker the pastry chef his job requires him to do everything it's why submarine cooks consider themselves as step above other ship's cooks the elite in the US Navy continual motion aboard the USS Toledo and that doesn't just mean the crew just like a big tin can out here rough seas it gets pretty mad sometimes thank goodness for motion sickness pills I have some of my pocket actually I carry that around all the time it's a travel sickness pill is that for you that's for everybody at queasy times which is a lot of times you'd think food is the last thing a sailor wants reality is some readers hate to miss a meal call me cookie they call me chef they call me you know they call me when when it's dinnertime it's chief Christopher Gardner's kitchen I actually learned this technique in Hawaii aboard the USS Toledo we make everything edible real quick where every appliance is a space saver underneath the grill tops in oven we're actually cooking our prime rib for dinner in there right now it's about a 30 quart deep fat fryer we make french fries fried chicken is it open in here five quart steam jacketed kettles we can cook anything from stews to soups gravies sauces got a thirty quart mixing bowl this kitchen or galley about the size of a walk-in closet pumps out meals for a sub crew of up to 150 men we're making some hot rolls every six hours culinary specialist John Jackson I worked for the Secretary of the Navy Detective dining facility at the Pentagon has the resume to be chief Gardner's sous chef difference well work a whole lot more hours here and actually had space space to work there another challenge is just having enough space now here's where we keep most of the dry goods to store enough food for up to seven months at sea this is how we keep a lot of the canned items this is where we can actually keep almost a hundred days of frozen food inside of this freezer for deployment you'll have about a thousand pounds of chicken in there where we keep our eggs our milk fresh fruits and vegetables then there's the Toledo's down lower level and we'll actually cover the whole deck and cans so like people we walk around a nuclear-powered sub can stay submerged for years and years but it is food supply which really dictates deployment time right now I'm preparing the soup for tonight good food is the best for morale giving the guys on the boat a reason to smile every day you know they could be having a really bad day and they can come get a really good meal and at least does something for them tight quarters limited ingredients and hungry sailors could this be the real Hell's Kitchen chief Gardner wants to give the show was shot Chef Ramsay never got a reply nothing I love that guy he's one of my heroes I kept writing and writing and write and I never got any replies no no never did he come okay so this is where it's at this is a challenge I want to see you do it yeah oh right very cool Johnson tell us what you a on board the USS Toledo well we had four squares actually available to us we actually slept through breakfast I was asleep yeah 5 o'clock in the morning 6 o'clock in the morning as a little too early for us especially since we were working till 11:30 the night before but anyway for dinner we had prime rib so oh yeah it was very good I mean everything they made onboard was fantastic chicken parmesan I had all this fruit all kinds of stuff of course when the ship set sail they can bring the fruit on board but after a couple of weeks that fruit goes bad so obviously they can they can't have fruit throughout the whole deployment that's why they switch the cans later on so I guess the quality of the food goes a little bit good in the beginning of the form of exactly not so good towards the end thanks John oh thank you create a very cool assignment

Channel: Fox61com

Views: 870,438

Rating: 4.7560096 out of 5

Keywords: Fox, 61, toledo, charlton

Id: uOPeD1N4MbM

Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/goNe-Deep]

I assume the galley shuts down during battle ops..? 🤔

[u/[deleted]]

This is my thing.

Wish there was a site that showed galleys by the various classes. Wonder how they’ve changed over time...

[u/linuxpunk81]

I was on this boat while this was happening. Good times

[u/ssbn632]

Fresh hot dinner rolls with every meal and cocoanut cream pie!