mess halls

図書館から借りる本の切れ目に読む "THE POWER OF HABIT" by Charles Duhiggを読んでいます。久し振りに読むので、これまでどんな内容だったかも忘れていますが、ここでは第二次世界大戦の頃に普通の食用肉が不足したので米国民に内臓などを食べてもらうよう政府が苦労した事が書かれています。
To convince Americans to eat livers and kidneys, housewives had to know how to make the foods look, taste, and smell as similar possible to what their families expected to see on the dinner table, the scientists concluded. For instance, when the Subsistence Division of the Quatermaster Corps--the people in charge of feeding soldiers--started serving fresh cabbage to troops in 1943, it was rejected. So mess halls chopped and boiled the cabbage until it looked like every other vegetable on a soldier's tray--and the troops ate it without complaint.
知らない表現 "mess halls" を辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A room or building where groups of people, especially soldiers, eat together.: Reese said an Army colonel named Jordan sent a soldier to the mess hall for ice to preserve the body overnight.
・Collins Dictionary: a military dining room, usually large: There was hardly a pause in conversation, barely a momentary silence, when Bauman walked into the mess hall late.