Dutch soldiers eat home specialities in the Afghan desert

Meals at the main Dutch army base in Uruzgan are brought from the Netherlands to Afghanistan, a rough journey that can easily take two months.

Today's dinner consists of filet of hake in a cream sauce, noodles, ratatouille with tomatoes, fried chicken, boiled potatoes, endive and roast beef. There is also a selection of five salads, soup, warm bread rolls, butter and paté, with seven kinds of fruit, yoghurt and cake for dessert. It is 5 pm, peak time in the Camp Holland mess in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, where around 2,500 soldiers have to be fed every day. Two lines form along the metal dishes keeping the food warm. Dutch, Australian, French, Slovakian, and British soldiers sit around the plastic-covered tables. Employees of the German catering company Supreme ensure that the serving dishes are never empty.

In Camp Holland soldiers enjoy three good meals a day, a better situation than might be expected given the inhospitable environment. Breakfast includes bacon, baked beans and porridge; for lunch there are several different hot dishes, croquettes and pizza. At dinner there is a wide and varied choice of meals. Each unit can have an alcohol-free drinks evening with snacks once a month. Birthday boys and girls can choose from three kinds of cake to share among friends.

Home cooking

This food is not cooked in Camp Holland itself. Instead it is prepared back home in the Netherlands. The ready-to-eat meals are frozen and shipped to the Pakistan port of Karachi, where the rough journey by road begins. Trucks transport it through Pakistan to the Khyber pass in the border region where Taliban fighters attack the convoys. The journey continues to Kabul, and then turns south. The last part of the route is also dangerous. It is not unusual for the route from the capital to be closed because of attacks by bandits, warlords or the Taliban.

“There is a huge delay at the border,” explains the kitchen manager, Michael de Wit. “Sometimes a thousand trucks wait there, other times 3,000. It can easily take two or three months for the food to arrive, and it has to be kept at -22°C the entire time.”

Food safety

The soldier's need for familiar food is not the only reason for this laborious catering method. Food safety is also an important consideration. The farmers in Uruzgan have hardly any markets for their produce, but the ISAF, the Nato force under which the Dutch mission falls, does not permit the bases to use Afghan food. “Only the cola comes from a factory in Kabul,” says De Wit. “Local fresh vegetables and fruit are not hygenic enough. You don't know what kinds of pesticides they have used. That is all flown in from Dubai.”

Because they cannot count on a steady supply, the base has generous stocks on site, kept in rows of freezer containers with their own generators. Altogether, the meals in Uruzgan cost about 60 euros per person per day.

Most of the cost is determined by the transport. The personnel comes from low-wage countries, except for manager De Wit. Around 45 Nepalese and Indian nationals work 12 hours per day, seven days per week for 500 dollars per month. Many of the men were recruited in the Gulf States, where millions of Asians work in households or the catering industry, often under poor conditions. “In Saudi Arabia I was only allowed to go home once every two or three years. The food is better here, as is the salary,” says Surendra (33) from Kathmandu.

The kitchen staff's world is restricted to the area behind the mess. “We are not allowed to mix with the soldiers, not even drink a cup of tea with them,” explains De Wit. “Before you know it, you're contaminated with bacteria that they carried in from the field.”