When setting up a camp, the mess hall was the typically the first building built. The idea behind the CCC was to put men to work, not machines, so they needed proper nutrition to fuel their various labors.
The food was basic, but plentiful, and having regular meals three times a day was a welcome change for most of the CCC boys who had been living off more meager rations during the Depression.

FDR's Visit

On a radio address to the Civilian Conservation Corps on July 17, 1933, Roosevelt said:
"(Men of the CCC) you are evidence that we are seeking to get away as fast as we possibly can from soup kitchens and free rations, because the government is paying you wages and maintaining you for actual work - work which is needed now and for the future and will bring a definite financial return to the people of the nation."
On a public relations tour for the CCC, Roosevelt visited this camp here at Big Meadows on August, 12th 1933 and sat down with the boys to eat some of the CCC cooking himself.