Did you know that German mess kits are also Dutch ovens? In the book “Tornisterlexikon für den Frontsoldaten,” published by the Wehrmacht during the war for use by field soldiers, there is a recipe for baking bread in a mess kit.
The German word for “mess kit” was Kochgeschirr. Literally: cooking utensils. It says “cooking” right in the name. And of course there are countless photos of soldiers cooking food in the mess kit. Here are just a few.
German soldiers were issued fresh bulk food daily, including a warm meal- in ideal conditions. An Esbit stove and a mess kit could heat warm food that arrived cold. But wartime and veteran memoirs are full of accounts of soldiers supplementing the issued food with whatever they could find. Often, what they found had to be cooked, and the mess kit was often the only cooking vessel available for men who had to carry everything on their backs. Cooking in the mess kit was not a daily task for the majority of soldiers but historical documentation leaves no doubt this was a reality for many situations in the field.
