Curious about the diet onboard a WW2 U-Boat!

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by TigerShark808

595 lbs. fresh eggs <--Thats alot of eggs!

it is indeed.

if my calculations are correct... about 4700 eggs

considering an average chicken egg weighs about 2.0 ounces, 8 or 9 chicken eggs would equate to one pound (considering slightly variable sizes). thus it would take about 4,700 eggs to add up to the 595 lbs aboard Jims U-boat upon departure from lorient.

according to my research... eggs stored in an unrefrigerated "cool room" should be consumed before the passage of 10-12 days depending on how cool the room is kept. (we can assume a uboat in the north atlantic would be a cool place)

so, Jims flatulent crew would have to eat an enormous amount of eggs during the first 10-12 (approx) days of their cruise.

56 crewmen (approx for an IX boat) would have to eat 83 eggs each over a period of 12 days.

not quite 7 eggs per day.

assuming you served each man 3 scrambled eggs or fried eggs for breakfast for 12 days running you would burn through nearly 2,000 eggs leaving you with about 2,700 eggs remaining.

assuming that an additional 2 eggs per crewman were hard boiled for snacking or as a lunch side etc - you could quickly burn through another 1,300 eggs leaving you with about 1,400 eggs remaining.

if you account for various recipes calling for eggs as part of the ingredients (cakes, crepes, french toast etc), its feasible that you could burn up the remaining 1,400 eggs fairly quickly.

EDIT: its known that fresh items had to be consumed pretty early on in the patrol... i would guess that these U-boat men would eat meals similar to what "mama" would make at home - at least for the first week or two.