Few things improve troop morale better than a hot meal
even if the name of that hot meal kind of sucks,
like this favorite front-line breakfast from World War II creamed dried beef on toast better known
as $#!t on a shingle.
So thank you to my Patreon patrons for constantly supporting this channel especially on videos
like this that'll probably get demonetized because I keep saying $#!t on a shingle
this time on Tasting History.
So I am releasing this video on Veterans Day, or Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day depending on where you are
and every Veterans Day I remember my grandpa, Gramps, who used to tell me stories about
when he was in World War II. He was part of the Medical Corps and he would tell me these stories about
when he was over in England and France, and even in Germany just after the end of the war and
I credit those stories with giving me my love for history because here I am a seven-year-old
playing with his Micro Machines and there's an old guys telling me about stuff that happened to a 7 year old
so so long ago
but the way that he told the stories was so engaging and made it so personal
that I was in entranced and I just loved him I couldn't get enough,
and so I guess you can kind of say that the reason that Tasting History is a thing is
because of those stories that my veteran Gramps used to tell me,
and so I figured what better way to honor my grandpa here on this Veterans Day than to make a dish
that he might have eaten when he was in the military even if
he very purposefully left it out of the stories he was telling his 7 year old son grandson
because there was no way my grandpa would ever say the phrase $#!t on a shingle,
or as the recipe from the U.S War Department in 1944 called it "Creamed dried beef
which for six gallons called for seven pounds of dried beef, a pound of fat melted,
flour, evaporated milk, water, and pepper.
Separate beef into small pieces, mix melted fat and flour, stir until smooth, mix milk and water, heat,
add gradually to flour mixture stirring constantly. Add chipped beef and pepper,
heat to boiling point, reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Note serve hot over toast."
Now obviously since this makes six gallons or 100 servings I'm going to make a reduced quantity today
but I do think it's really interesting how they give the quantities in the original recipe
besides pounds and gallons they also measure in No. 56 dippers.
Like one pound of fat would be a half No. 56 dipper because you wouldn't often have a scale on hand when you're out in the field
but you would probably have the standard quart sized No. 56 dipper.
And the writing on the dipper was so standard that you could use it to make measurements as well.
Another book specifies one cup of liquid comes to the top of the date figure, two cups to the top of the manufacturer's letter,
and three cups of liquid will come to the top of the U.S letters.
I of course have no dipper and I'm not making six gallons worth so for a smaller portion what you'll need is:
just over half a pound or 250 grams of chipped beef. So this is chipped beef or dried beef and they come now
in these little jars. You'll need four for this recipe and it's basically ground, very salted beef
that is then pressed into a form, dried and then sliced very thinly, and when you open it
kind of reminds me of the smell of a can of dog food when you open it, but it- that smell goes away,
kind of, but it's all wrapped up like this and they kind of remind me of Pringles.
Yeah so this is what you need for this recipe.
Then 2 tablespoons or 30 grams of fat.
This recipe is not specific in what kind of fat but in 'The Cook's Manual' from 1910 which may be
the earliest recipe for this dish it says butter is preferred so that's what I'm using.
A heaping third cup or 40 grams of flour, one and a half cups or 350 milliliters of evaporated milk,
one and a half cups or 350 milliliters of water, one teaspoon of black pepper, and a few slices of bread for toast.
So the recipe from 1910 which was probably used during World War I
also includes parsley and uses beef stock. It also uses 15 pounds of chipped beef
for 60 servings rather than seven for 100 servings like the World War II version so
it was four ounces per serving and then by World War II it was just over one ounce per serving.
Just thought that was interesting
but to make the World War II version of SOS [$#!t on a shingle] chop the chipped beef into small pieces,
and then peel everything apart and put it into a bowl and soak it with some water.
Some old recipes say that the beef is so salty that it needs to be scalded in boiling water.
I don't think the modern version is as salty so if you soak it for 15 or 20 minutes that's going to be just fine.
While it does, mix the evaporated milk and water together and heat it over low heat.
Then separately melt the butter over low heat in a pot and add the flour and whisk together.
Let it cook for about a minute then slowly pour in the hot milk mixture.
You want to constantly be stirring and let it cook for three or four minutes while it thickens.
Then whisk in the pepper, then finally add the chipped beef, then bring the pot to a boil and then turn the heat down
so it just simmers for about 10 minutes and it'll thicken up even more during that time.
Now one of the things that actually inspired me to do a video for Veterans Day was a conversation that
I was having with an old friend that I used to know in New York who now runs a website called veteranlife.com.
The site is dedicated to providing veterans and military families
with different resources and benefits that they might not otherwise know of and it actually also has
a lot of wonderful things for civilians because because I am about as civilian as you can get, and yet
I spent time on this site because they have a whole area of military history.
I read a wonderful story about the Navy's ice cream barges from World War II.
They were basically giant floating refrigerators in the Pacific that provided ice cream to the sailors
and I think that that is going to have to be the topic for a video in the future but for now
let's talk about the men who would have been making that ice cream or more specifically $#!t on a shingle.
So whenever discussing a topic as large as American Military cooking during World War II
there are so many variables and situations that they're going to be exceptions to everything
and exceptions to the exceptions. There was fighting going on all over the world
and there were different levels of preparedness at any given time so even the military's best laid plans
often went awry but in general this is what things should have been like if you were cooking in a field kitchen.
Typically each company of about 150 to 200 men would have their own
field kitchen with maybe a half a dozen cooks.
With some help they could set up the entire kitchen in under 30 minutes.
The goal was to have the kitchen close to the men that they were feeding but
depending on a lot of things terrain the proximity to the enemy sometimes they could be
100 yards back or 10 miles back. The nice thing about being further back is then they could often team up with
3 or 4 other kitchens to become a battalion sized kitchen.
Also being further back meant that that they would be less likely to be the target of enemy fire
so that they could maybe do some cooking during the day because if they were too close
then all the cooking had to be done before sunup and after sundown.
Now the kitchen could be anywhere from a nearby building to a tent to the back of a truck
but they all had the same equipment.
Most important was the gasoline-powered M1937 range stove.
It was very versatile and could perform all of the functions of any stove top and oven in a normal kitchen.
They were of course rather compact but usually a company had two or three that they could work with,
and one training video from World War II said
"If you lose your oven, take couple of barrels,
cover them with clay and bake your bread".
Now some of the other equipment included large immersion heaters that could heat up a barrel or even a huge tub of water rather quickly
that could be used then for cleaning dishes or from making food and for taking a hot bath...
preferably using new water.
And speaking of water when it came to drinking water
it needed to be purified and then was kept in a Lyster bag This was meant to distribute purified water for up to 100 men.
Then there were mermite cans, these were insulated containers usually 7 gallons
and meant to hold 3 or 4 inserts like a giant thermos they kept things hot or cold
and were often used when the kitchen was far from the front line.
Food could be prepared at the kitchen and then put into the containers, into the mermite can
put on a truck and brought to the front line to serve the men
but if you were doing this you really wanted to pay attention to which mermite can you took
because some were labeled with ETO Blood Bank with blood meant for transfusions given near the front lines.
Mixing those up would be a mistake you would not make twice
but assuming that you got the right can what kind of meals are you loading them with?
Well officially you have very little say in it
especially starting around World War II there was a big push to make sure that the
troops were getting enough of the right minerals and vitamins and so
dishes and entire menus were created by nutritionists back in Washington,
and in one video from 1943 about the nutrition program
they talk about how they started out by examining the diets of the enemy armies.
The Japanese were supposed to have extreme energy given to them by a simple handful of rice,
and "the Nazis are supposed to have a Superman vitamin pill".
Though the attempt at replicating the effects of this pill with mere vitamins did not really work
because actually this superhuman pill was something called Pervitin
which had methamphetamine that would give the Germans a lot of energy if short-lived.
Some say that the Blitzkrieg couldn't have happened without Pervitin because some soldiers had to stay up for days at a time,
but while vitamin B might have not replicated the effects of Pervitin
the military did put together a top-notch diet plan for the cooks out in the field to follow.
Menus for dinner could include chicken a la king with Lyonnaise carrots and an apricot upside down cake for dessert,
and all of the ingredients would be dried or salted or otherwise preserved and shipped
all the way from the U.S to the front lines all over the world
but of course most of these ingredients never actually made it to where they were going or at least not in a timely fashion
so you didn't have everything at once so the field cooks usually had to cobble something together with what they had available.
Though depending on their location that could be something pretty nice depending on where you were.
When the 10th Mountain Division was in Italy in 1945 Corporal John Stone said
"We used lots of fresh Italian ingredients, as much as we could no matter what we were cooking.
We also learned to cook a lot of pizza this woman and her daughter they taught taught us how to do it right."
You made do with what you had and many times that actually meant field rations.
Basically if you were near the front at least one meal a day was going to be pre-packaged field rations,
and for some troops it could be every meal every day for days or even weeks on end.
Now I want to do a whole video on the field rations of World War II and how they evolved into the modern MRE
or meal ready to eat and actually I should try to do that with SteveMRE who who
actually eats these old foods. I'll put a link to where you can watch him eat actual rations from World War II
but since it was part of a cook's job to make sure that everyone had the field rations that they would need
we should touch on it now.
So there were lots of types of field rations that you could get
depending on where you were and at what point during the war you were at
but between 1942 and 1945 the two most common were the C ration and the K ration.
The C ration was three meals each made up of an M unit or meat unit and a B unit which was the bread or dessert.
The M unit was the main dish, you could have beef stew with peas or a canned meat and vegetable stew.
At the beginning of the war there was pretty much only different stews but later on you might have meat and spaghetti and tomato sauce,
eggs and potatoes or pork and beans.
Then the B unit had some hardtack
[Clack Clack]
though it was supposedly softer and easier on the teeth than that of previous wars,
the biscuits being made of soybeans, wheat, egg, and lard.
"Pretty tasty biscuit."
Then there'd be some coffee powder or sometimes lemon drink
then there'd be some sugar, salt, maybe chocolate, and often cigarettes and gum.
All told the three meals provided 37 to 3,800 calories per day and could be eaten cold
but were better when they were cooked.
Now the C ration was a good amount of food and was quite varied
but it was heavy and so if you were a remote or a paratrooper you would get the K ration.
They weighed less partly because they had less calories, they had 2830 calories per day,
and were supposed to be much less edible. Things like the fatty pork loaf and the maltose and dextrose tablets would often just get thrown out by the troops.
The thing is the K ration was meant to be used for no more than 5 days
but there are stories of soldiers living almost exclusively off of them for weeks at a time.
One unit known as Merrill's Marauders lived almost exclusively on K rations for 5 months in Burma,
and after 5 months of fatty pork loaf every day imagine how happy they would have been
to walk into a field kitchen and be offered something like a plate of hot $#!t on a on a shingle.
Once everything is simmered for about 10 minutes toast your bread,
and then ladle the creamed beef onto the toast and serve,
and here we are World War II creamed dried beef,
I kind of spread around here on the "shingle"
because I feel feel like they gotta go together.
All right here we go.
[Crunch]
*mumbles* That's not bad.
All right.
It needs the shingle. The toast is really necessary for the for the texture because
once the once the toast kind of had softened the texture of the actual beef
it's not terribly pleasant. It's just kind of chewy.
That said the flavor of the whole thing, not that bad. In fact
actually reminds me of the gravy that my grandpa used to make though he would put it over biscuits
and it was made with bacon fat so if you want to make this with bacon fat
it is quite good.
That said the the flavor is is good. It could use more more spice probably some more pepper.
I mean it's a pretty small amount of pepper for for that quantity that they used
so you could add more pepper. You're not being rationed hopefully. What I would
think is actually really good is just a different meat like ground up sausage or cut up bacon or something like that
something that just the texture is a little more pleasing to the palette.
That said when you compare it to a lot of military foods
it's not that bad especially the older military foods out in the field.
This one I could see I could see looking forward to it.
Anyway if you are a veteran or in the military
or part of a military family or just interested in military history and lifestyle
make sure to visit veteranlife.com and for those of you lucky enough to have a grandparent still around
even if they weren't in World War II go ask them to tell you a story because I'm sure that they would love to
and you'll appreciate it when you're older.
So don't forget to Like, Subscribe, have a fantastic Veterans Day or Armistice Day or Remembrance Day
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.