SOS

I received this email from J P Maher the other day. He writes about SOS, or creamed beef. SOS is the dish that most servicemen either loved or hated. Few straddled the fence on this one.

My brothers, brothers-in-law and I logged a total of nearly forty years in the military. My hitch of 3 years, 9 months and 6 days was in the Cold War, the others in WWII and Korean War era. I'm a translator, culture historian and etymologist. We know whereof we speak.

SOS ("stuff" on a shingle) was NOT Creamed CHIPPED Beef, but Creamed GROUND Beef. Quite gloppy. Some troops loved it. I tried it once and swore off. This is not to say that some troopers learned it another way, but here's the authentic scoop.

Creamed CHIPPED Beef was one of my favorite dishes, whether in the mess Hall or my mother's kitchen.

It was the greyish ground beef recipe that we called "'stuff' on a shingle/SOS."

J.P. Maher, Ph D, E-5RA
(Regular Army)
Professor Emeritus

Thanks for the information, J.P. From my recollection as a 29-year veteran of Navy and Seabee galleys -- both active service and reserve duty -- SOS had a generic definition. Any of the dishes, creamed ground beef, creamed chipped beef and minced beef for instance, were collectively called SOS by sailors.

My favorite? Creamed ground beef. I still eat it's country kin: sausage gravy with biscuits when I get a chance. Creamed chipped beef was too salty, even after rinsing the salt away. Minced beef is just plain horrible any way you fix it!

We served creamed ground beef each morning during my last large field exercise with NMCB-17 in 1994 at Fort Hunter Liggett, California.

Official 1969 Armed Forces recipe for Creamed Ground Beef

1969 Armed Forces Recipe Service Card no. L-30
Yield: 100 portions
Portion: 1 cup

24 pounds ground beef
2 pounds all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon black pepper
6 tablespoons salt
4 ounces beef soup and gravy base
3-1/2 gallons warm milk
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Brown beef in its own fat in steam-jacketed kettle or roasting pan. Drain excess fat. Add flour, pepper, salt, and soup and gravy base to beef. Mix thoroughly and cook about 5 minutes until flour is absorbed. Add warm milk to beef mixture. Add Worcestershire sauce; heat to a simmer, stirring frequently. Cook until thickened.

Camp 2005 -- Pot Luck Saturday

Camp finished yesterday with a breakfast "pot luck." This isn't your traditional pot luck where the guests share their favorite dish. At our camp kitchen, the pot luck is designed to empty the refrigerator so that we can go home.

You might say that each staff member is the kitchen was given a chance to show off his or her favorite dish from the week. According to my inventory as we emptied the contents of the walk-in onto the center table, we had no less than 17 items to dispose of. I recorded this inventory in my notebook as we emptied the reefer.

The center table about half-way through our unloading operation.

Here's the tally:

1. A 2-inch full-sized hotel pan of lasagna from Wednesday dinner.
2. A half-sized hotel pan of Thursday's brown gravy.
3. Two soup bowls of ground cooked beef.
4. 39 grilled hamburgers from the All-American BBQ Friday.
5. 23 grilled hot dogs from the BBQ.
6. 8 pounds of raw bacon.
7. 10 pounds of raw sausage links.
8. 14 baked potatoes.
9. 15 pounds seasoned cooked diced chicken from quesadillas Friday (I purchased too much pulled chicken meat).
10. 10 dozen flour tortillas.
11. 8 dozen eggs.
12. A full 4-inch full-sized hotel pan of baked beans from the BBQ.
13. 13 pounds of shredded cheddar cheese.
14. 1 quart of barbecued pulled chicken from Thursday's lunch.
15. A small pan of sauteed onions and bell peppers.
16. A 2-inch full-sized hotel pan of sliced tomatoes from the BBQ.
17. A 4-inch full-sized hotel pan of braised red cabbage from Thursday's roast pork loin dinner.

I'm sure that your mind said, "Breakfast burritos!" as you browsed the list. We prepared 100 breakfast burritos from scrambled eggs, seasoned diced chicken, torillas and cheese. They've become a Saturday morning tradition at our camp. I would've made salsa from the tomatoes, but I didn't have enough hot peppers.

From left to right: sausage bacon, hot dogs and bacon; lasagna; barbecued chicken; and SOS.

After making the burritos, we heated everything except the red cabbage and placed it on the tables in the dining room. My staff wouldn't let me serve braised red cabbage for breakfast. (Instead, several of us took it home -- I have two tubs in my home freezer!)

Some of the items were well accepted, burritos included. After a 30-minute meal from 9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., we found that the bacon, sausage and hot dogs were fast sellers. The kids attacked about half of the lasagna, a few hamburgers, some of the SOS (brown gravy and crumbled beef), all of the fried potatoes (remember the baked potatoes?) and about half of the barbecued pulled chicken.

We saved the Cocoa Puffs and Cocoa Krispies for Saturday because they're so popular. One of the drawbacks of buying the Kelloggs and G.M. variety packs is that the campers tend to favor the sweeter breakfast cereals. They shun healthy cereals like Total, which we also saved for Saturday.

The rest of the meal consisted of dry cereal and milk (we had to buy seven gallons Friday night), fresh fruit, orange juice cartons and a coffee cake made from biscuit mix and canned apples.

Navy minced beef

I received this email from a disabled Navy veteran the other day:

I would like the recipe for mince beef on toast for a family of 4. I loved that when I was in the Navy. I am now a disabled vet.

Thank you,
Billy G. Reeder

Before I print my scaled-down recipe, here's a bit of history on Navy minced beef. I last wrote on the topic two and one-half years ago here.

According to retired chief commissarymam Tom Selland, his ship only served chipped beef one time each year.

"The crew went up in arms," said Selland. Minced beef on toast was the SOS of choice for sailors.

"Minced beef was highly acceptable," said Selland. "They liked it a lot better than spinach quiche."

As you may guess, Selland said this with a smile on his face. To paraphrase a popular cliche from the 1970s: Real sailors didn't eat quiche in those days.

Minced beef is uniquely Navy. It was found in every Navy cookbook until the inception of the Armed Forces Recipe Service in 1969. In fact, the recipe for creamed beef doesn't appear in any Navy cookbook between 1940 and 1962.

Minced beef is prepared by adding ground beef to a tomato sauce, according to Selland. It’s cooked much like Army cooks prepared creamed beef. But it’s the of mace or nutmeg that made minced beef unique.

According the Navy’s 1962 recipe, the commissaryman braised ground beef and chopped onions in a copper -- that’s what commissarymen have called steam-jacketed kettles since the day’s of sail.

He then added flour to the meat and cooked the mixture until it browned. (Commissarymen stirred the meat mixture with large flat paddles called copper paddles.) He finished the dish by adding water, nutmeg or mace, salt and ground black pepper.

Like chipped beef or creamed beef, minced beef was served over toast points.

Selland learned to cook minced beef on his first ship, the USS Polaris (AF 11), as a seaman and commissaryman third class. He said that the chief commissaryman on the Polaris -- he couldn't remember his name -- taught the cooks to thicken the tomato sauce for the minced beef with cornstarch.

Instead of adding flour to the beef as it braised in the copper, the commissarymen on the Polaris added tomatoes, water, nutmeg or mace, salt and pepper to the copper. They thickened it with a cornstarch slurry. Selland continued to use this recipe throughout his career.

NAVY MINCED BEEF

I scaled Armed Forces Recipe Service recipe No. 36 from 100 portions down to 5. It's the recipe I used on the USS Cocopa and USS Stein in the late 1970s.

On board ship, we would cooked the beef in a steam-jacketed kettle with the drain open. The fat drained off as we stirred the meat and onions. Cook beef with onions in its own fat until beef loses its pink color, stirring to break apart. Drain or skim off excess fat.

1-1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onions
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 (15-ounce) can tomatoes, crushed
1/2 teaspoon ground mace (or ground nutmeg)
1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
6 tablespoons water

Braise beef in its own fat with onions. Sprinkle flour over beef and continue cooking until flour is absorbed. Add tomatoes, spices and water. Stir to mix well. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Makes 5 (1-cup) or 10 (1/2-cup) portions.

Creamed ground beef

Each year I receive two or three requests for the old military recipe for creamed beef. Known as SOS or "stuff" on a shingle, most ask for the recipe from the time period of their service to this great nation. In view of a recent request for a recipe that's suitable for a "small family," I have posted such a recipe. It's based on one pound of ground beef, which should be sufficient for the average family.

Click for the recipe for 100 portions if you need to serve a crowd. It's based on the 1969 U.S. Armed Forces Recipe Service card No. L-30.

I "enjoyed when it was served in the (CPO) mess," wrote a retired Navy chief petty officer.

CREAMED GROUND BEEF

1 pound ground beef
5-1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons beef base
3-1/4 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Brown beef in its own fat in an saucepan or skillet. Drain excess fat. Add flour, pepper and beef base to beef. Mix thoroughly and cook until flour is absorbed.

Add milk and Worcestershire sauce to beef mixture. Heat to a simmer, stirring frequently. Cook until thickened. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce to taste. Serves 4 to 6.

Robert Mast's World War II U.S. Army field kitchen

Here are two photographs and an article by Robert Mast, a World War II reenactors from Tionesta, Penn. Robert uses the M59 field range outfit in his field kitchen. The M59 was developed after World War II and served military cooks well until it was replaced in the late 1990s. In November I posted a photograph of Roberts immersion heater battery.

The unit that I cook for is Easy Company, 393rd Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. They were instrumental in securing the last bridge over the Rhine for the Allied crossing into German in World War II.

We have had 150 allied and 150 German reenactors for the past three years. You can go to The Bridge at Remagen for information on the event. Everyone has a pretty good time.

I was in during 'Nam 1966-1968. But I was an MP instead of a cook. The MPs and cooks also got along fine. It was like, You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Anyway, I decided to buy some cook gear and try being the company cook. It's a lot of fun and a lot of work.

This past year we had two meals for the guys. We served about 175-200 for supper and about 125 for breakfast. We cooked 200 pounds of chicken leg quarters for supper along with mashed spuds, corn, gravy and brownies. For breakfast we had sausage gravy on toast with eggs.

If you look at the picture, you will see a makeshift oven I made out of an old cooling cabinet, which I modified to a shorter height to match the M-59s. It is located to the left of the "open" sign.

I had a third M2 unit that I used to heat the oven. I baked the chicken in it. It has five shelves, each holding two 13- x 18-inch trays. Of course the potatoes, gravy and corn went into the 10- and 15-gallon pots.

The square roasters held the chicken after it was cooked. Of course the SOS went into the 10-gallon pot and the toast was baked in the homemade oven. Coffee was made in another 10 gallon pot and dipped. Wish I had an insulated urn of 4- to 5-gallon size. Eggs were scrambled in the roaster lid.

Chef Steven's rules for sausage gravy

After four decades of cooking in military, institutional and camp kitchens, I've learned to follow a number of personal cooking rules. As self-imposed culinary guidelines, they help me prepare and serve great food to my diners, whether at home or in camp. These rules provide consistency each time I prepare a dish.

Earlier this summer, the camp director asked my if I could prepare a "mean" biscuits and gravy. Up to the challenge, we set a date where I could premier biscuits and gravy. I took my standard biscuits and gravy recipe, modified it to use a butter and flour roux (previously, I stirred the flour in with the crumbled sausage meat) and presented camp-made biscuits with my chef's sausage gravy to the staff in mid-May.

Beginning in the third week of June, we presented scratch buttermilk biscuits and rich sausage gravy to the campers every other week. By request, I broke my "pork only" rule to prepare turkey sausage gravy for our largest camp (alongside pork sausage gravy) at the end of July. I came away validating my rule. Campers selected pork gravy three times as often as they did turkey gravy! (The same held true for real bacon vs. turkey bacon!)

Here are my rules for great sausage gravy:

• Crumble, finely chop or grind the sausage. Diced sausage may look good on the plate. But it's the fine pieces that carry flavor into the gravy. Throughout the summer, I used pre-cooked patties with success. Grinding partially thawed patties in the food processor gave it the texture I was looking for.
• Don't skip on the milk. The fat in whole milk adds body and richness to the gravy. If you must, drink two percent or skim milk in a glass, not in the gravy. Whole milk works best. And a little cream makes even richer gravy! Unfortunately to some, good gravy isn't low in fat!
• A butter roux is the best thickening agent for gravy. Leave the cornstarch to pudding cookery, where its magic sheen works best. And don't forget to cook out the flour taste in the roux.
• Traditional American breakfast sausage works best for traditional American biscuits and gravy. Use pork sausage, not beef. SOS is made with beef, not pork. Though related, they're not the same.
• Think long and hard before adding a new ingredient or two the gravy. I've successfully worked a modest amount of roasted diced red peppers into my gravy. Leave the mushrooms for a great mushroom sauce or pasta dish. They don't belong in sausage gravy.
• The best biscuits are made from scratch. Develop a good recipe and stick to it.

Oh yes, there's one final rule: Good sausage gravy must leave a mild case of heartburn, especially when cased with several mugs of coffee. Sorry; it's a rule!

Sausage Gravy on Biscuits

I found another sausage gravy recipe this afternoon while cleaning for company. I copied it from Cooking from Quilt Country: Hearty Recipes from Amish and Mennonite Kitchens by Marcia Adams (Clarkson Potter, 1988, 224 pages).

I thought a family-sized recipe would nicely round out the collection here at 'Round the Chuckbox. Except for Frank's gravy, most recipes have been for quantity cooking. Other sausage gravy recipes on 'Round the Chuckbox:

Frank's Hearty Skillet Breakfast 2005 -- and 2006
Dave's Scratch Country Gravy -- makes 3 to 4 gallons
Independence Day Country Breakfast -- feeding 160 at summer camp
Navy Creamed Beef -- 100 portions of SOS

SAUSAGE GRAVY ON BISCUITS

A sweet, herbal aroma will waft from Adam's country gravy as it simmers. Omit nutmeg and poultry seasoning for a traditional savory gravy. Or try ground coriander in their place. Double the flour for thick gravy.

I pound sage-flavored bulk sausage, as lean as possible
2 tablespoons finely minced onion
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 quart milk
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg, rounded
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning, rounded
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco
18 large baking powder biscuits

Crumble sausage into a large cast iron skillet and saute over medium-high heat, breaking the meat into small pieces as it cooks. Don't brown or crisp. When the meat is about three-quarters done, add onion and cook until the onion is transparent.

Drain all but 2 tablespoons of the meat drippings. Stir in flour and cook over medium-low heat for 6 or 7 minutes, or until flour turns golden and bubbles up. Pour in the milk at once and add seasonings. Cook and stir until mixture thickens. Check seasoning.

Place at least 3 biscuits halves on each plate and top with sausage gravy. Makes about 1-1/2 quarts gravy. Serves 6 to 12.

American Chop Suey

I received this email from Miles Lambert of Williamsburg, Virginia:

I came across your website while doing a little preliminary exploring about Navy food. I am a free lance writer and especially like to write humorous pieces about food and wine. Having served in the Navy during 1969-73, I have thought about doing something relating to Navy chow, though I'm not too sure in what way. Sometime these things require a long incubation, during which time I do some research. Sometime these things require a long incubation, during which time I do some research. One reason I wanted to contact you now is to ask whether you can recommend any books that talk about how recipes were developed in the Navy in past times, let's say in the period from WWII to Vietnam. I would be interested in reading about specific recipes as well as the general topic. I'd also like to know about how much leeway a cook has in 'bending' recipes as need be. I am sure galley cooks must have some very funny stories in that regard.

I notice that you have a Hungarian last name. I am Hungarian on my mother's side, and you might enjoy this story as much as I did when it happened. I was a yeoman aboard the USS Enterprise, and one day my assistant came back from lunch and said they had "goulash." Of course my ears perked up and I went down to the alley ... Only to find elbow macaroni with ground beef and some tomato and what not. I tried to explain to my shipmate that this concoction has nothing to do with goulash. But I couldn't get it across to him. He was from the mountains of West Virginia, and I was surprised recently to see in June Carter Cash's cookbook that she had exactly the same idea of goulash!

I have a similar goulash story. I too never heard the term goulash applied to the macaroni dish until I got off active duty in 1979 and met my wife. The Navy recipe card called the dish that you described "American chop suey."

Goulash often refers to a one-pot mixture of "stuff," kind of a culinary potpourri. It differs greatly from the Hungarian dish, a stew that's often composed of beef, onions, red peppers and paprika. Dave Desiderio, a Viet Nam War brown water sailor, said:

I remember the chow at ... was good. I particularly remember what I call "American Chop Suey" -- macaroni noodles and hamburger all mixed up. I love that stuff, especially with Tabasco sauce. Breakfasts were typically GI, and I've always liked that stuff, too. Yes, I like SOS.

The first time Debbie invited me to her grandmother's house for dinner, she proudly announced they were having goulash for dinner. Unlike your initial reaction, I puzzled over her Missouri-born and raised grandmother cooking a traditional Hungarian dish (a dish I've only had a few times in my life).

Although their goulash didn't fit my view of the family profile, I enjoyed the dish. And I discovered the dish easily receives copious qualtities of hot sauce.