It's not that surprising to me. Ships with a crew of 8 will have a cook to feed everyone. Eating is pretty essential, and I think they were working pretty hard at the office back in those days.

When you're on a ship you don't have the option to walk into town or call for takeout so having a chef is essential. As a software company, food is a very nice perk but it is a perk. In my personal experience lots of companies outside of tech work equivalently hard but almost never have food provided.

Don't get me wrong, I really like food as a perk - it fosters cohesion and encourages people to form social bonds that help your company make it through difficult times etc, but it's far from the norm in other industries (except for media and entertainment where on-set catering is absolutely expected it seems).