Soldiers on the battlefield talk incessantly about sex, but prefer food and sleep. Privation changes everyone's priorities. I have recently been interviewing survivors of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Without exception, they say they dreamt about food, never about women. In my war-corresponding days, I was thought a freak even by the iron men of the SAS because I enjoyed battlefield catering. Oatmeal and dried-apple flakes boiled up in a mess tin makes a perfect breakfast. Irish stew in the curious bronze tins in which the British army's composite rations used to be distributed seemed a feast after a day's yomping. In the Falklands, I teamed up with fellow correspondent Robert Fox on the understanding that we would cook meals alternately. I sacked him after the first day, however, when he made a shocking mess of reheating our dehydrated Arctic rations, scarcely a challenge demanding the services of Jamie Oliver. I once took a Fortnum & Mason hamper to an India-Pakistan war. This was a mistake. Foie gras tastes revolting at 110 degrees. I did, however, gain a lot of face among Indian army officers for possessing a Christmas pudding, the sort of thing they expect every Englishman to carry.

The biggest problem of camp cooking is that the simplest task, like finding and boiling clean water over a flickering solid-fuel cooker, becomes a challenge. I once thought myself clever for taking a butane-gas stove to war. However, I changed its cylinders inside a sealed tent, then lit the burner. My face took a fortnight to heal.

Sex or food?

Food on the battlefield is essential fuel. Sex you do back home, when nobody is trying to shoot you.

· Max Hastings, ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph and London Evening Standard, was the first journalist in Port Stanley during the Falklands War