This one is a real longshot. I won't be surprised if nobody can identify it. I read this book sometime in the early-to-mid-1980s. Science fiction novel, checked out from a public library, written in English, and I am pretty sure it was in hardback. Told in the third person, with multiple viewpoint characters, and a fairly serious tone -- not any sort of parody or satire, for instance. The problem is that I only remember one short scene clearly. Here's how it went:

1. This part of the story -- perhaps most of the story -- is taking place aboard a large spaceship with interstellar range (military, I'm nearly sure) which is large enough to require a great many crew members (probably hundreds). I think there is some sort of interstellar war going on, or else one seems likely to break out at any minute, but I can't remember details of the larger plot. I'm sure the crew of this ship were all human -- but I don't remember if their enemies (or prospective enemies) were equally human, or if this was set in one of those futures where there are other sentient alien races with their own battle fleets.

2. In the one scene that I still remember pretty well, which I believe comes near the middle of the book (definitely not in the first chapter!), the viewpoint character -- who was not a major figure in the early chapters -- has just completed a long shift. I believe he's part of the Engineering Department. Now he wants to relax by eating a nice hot dinner.

3. He decides to splurge. Instead of taking whatever is standard-issue food aboard that ship, he is willing to spend extra to get one of his favorite dishes. I don't think it was regular money he would be spending, though. The implication was that, in order to keep the ship's galley from running out of all the best items too fast during a long cruise, the rules were set up so that you had to accumulate "ration points," or something similar, for the occasional special treat. The rest of the time, you just ate something much simpler and cheaper, three times a day, as a way to keep your body adequately nourished. For the sake of argument, let's say that what this guy wanted was a big plateful of spaghetti and meatballs, with a certain type of salad on the side. (I don't swear that this is accurate, but I think he was looking forward to spaghetti and meatballs.)

4. He punches his order into a computer terminal, knowing full well that his account has more than enough "ration points" (or whatever they are called in the ship's economy) to cover the special dinner he's been promising himself.

5. Nonetheless, despite how hard he has worked to accumulate those points which are supposed to be redeemable whenever you like, he gets an error message telling him his order cannot be filled today because of some change in ship's policies. He throws a fit! (I don't mean literally going berserk, but he does complain loudly.)

6. I just vaguely remember that there was some sort of problem with the ship which had caused the Captain, earlier that day, to approve some new rationing restrictions on various things as a reaction to "a state of emergency" (or words to that effect). I don't remember if this was because of lack of energy to make nonessential things happen, or because they were carrying too many people and couldn't create special meals on demand for everyone, or what. Apparently the character I was just mentioning had not gotten the word yet when he sat down to eat dinner. I think the scene I described was followed by another scene showing the Captain (and/or some of the other senior officers) talking about how a flood of complaints was already coming in from sailors who didn't know all the facts about the problems the ship was currently facing (or was expected to face in the near future?).

7. I don't remember a thing about the cover art or the author, but I can say that if this novel had been written by any of the Really Big Names of 20th Century SF who sometimes wrote stuff with a military-style setting -- such as Poul Anderson or Gordon R. Dickson -- then I would have expected to run across the book again, sometime in the last couple of decades, and I haven't. (And it certainly wasn't written by Heinlein; I'm familiar with everything he published.) I'm also sure it wasn't a "licensed novel" set in a preexisting SF universe, such as Star Wars or Star Trek.