What did WWII Soldiers Eat? 

Always happy to see you upload, Max.

Throw a box off Crayola in the pan and you have a favorite snack of the Marines.

This was fascinating to see from someone with a familial connection! While it's probably much later, historically speaking, than much of what you've covered on the channel, it might be interesting to look into some of the recipes that've cropped up in the wake of US occupation and allied forces across the world. Spam got around!

The modern recipe i.e. Gulf War Era has A-1 and Worstershire sauce to give it that little burn.

You've admittedly peaked my interest mentioning Nazi meth pills, ngl.

I wonder if there’s a desire to keep it on the menu just because it’s part of US military traditions at this point.

Ha, I remember wishing we had cream chip beef. But no, just that ground beef gravy in the Air Force, with Texas Pete of course

My go to breakfast is the ground beef version of SOS over biscuits with scrambled eggs on top. I ate this every day I could in garrison in Germany during the late 70s. It tastes even better with finely chopped onions and Worcester added.

@@mountainclawoutdoors I see the air force get extra luxury in any county

@@yuvalgabay1023 oh, we had it much better from what I saw and heard My uncle was right

Lol! I love it!! Reminds me of when my ex was bugging me about dinner so I smirked and told him DNS. He asked what's that?? I laughed and said dump n' stir. It became my standard answer after that. We were just kids who didn't a lot of extra money and I was always making something out of leftovers and odds n' ends.

It's really damn good food lol

my dad still says shit on toast so...

Lmao my father says that a lot.

My grandma and mom too! I had no idea it was a real dish until literally the day my grandmother passed away. I got the call that she'd passed and with encouragement and knowing she would have wanted me to live life, went to brunch with a big group of friends. There it was on the menu and what a sign! I'm glad it wasn't just my family that used it as a vague threat lol

Ettore Boiardi. He put the Boyardee on he cans so people would pronounce it right.

Then we salute and remember the man, for his legacy keeps people fed even to this day. In fact, in commemoration, today I'm going to open a can of Ravioli to his name for my microwaved ration.

From Cleveland!!!

You just reminded me of that scene from Generation Kill. "Chef Boyardee, the master!"

He also sold his company after the war as part of a deal to ensure none of his employees would be laid off. By all accounts a great chef and a better person.

That would almost be a savory pancake batter so it would probably be pretty good.

To quote a famous show, war isn't hell. There are no innocents in hell.

@@LazzurusMan It's certainly very hell-like for those caught up in it.

my great grandfather lied about his age when joining WWII

​@@sickmit3481 I agree!

Hahaha

same here

My grandfather served as a U.S. Army MP during WW2. Both he and my grandmother enjoyed making this dish, though they too playfully fought over the name, 😅. I grew up eating this for breakfast at their house, though it was made with ground beef, onions, and parsley. I still enjoy it to this day even if I can't seem to get the recipe exactly the same. That might just be down to the ancient seasoned cast iron my grandmother had in her kitchen. Good memories. A thanks to you and also Tasting History for making me think on happier times.

Creamed beef sounds more nasty in todays world…..

Shit on a shingle

I've tried some modern day MREs, and they're not that bad. One of them had a vanilla cappucino mix, and it was better than anything I've had at Starbucks. That being said, I'm not actually sure if the body digests them properly...

@@nahor88 I'm not sure about US MREs but in my country, combat rations are meant to stop you up so you have to use the bathroom less when out on the field. Surviving on that for 3 days wreaked havoc on my guts so badly that I was actually glad to eat base cookhouse food

@@qq13563817153 Gives shitting out a brick, its meaning.

@@deathbringer9893 yeah we actually have laxatives disguised as fruit bars in our accessories pack and lemme tell ya, it's explosive

Navy still has chipped beef, comes in 10# cans

There's a grandpa I would've loved to meet & talk to. Honest, thoughtful, gracious. And truthful in a humorous manner.

I strongly urge you to look up the old time Southern comedian, Jerry Clower. He had a bit about the war, and one grizzled old veteran said that, "In my unit, Rambo would have been a cook." I guess you had to be there.

my grandpa never talked about the wars he was in either. He was in 3 of them, professional infantryman. All I've left are some photos taken in lager when he was on deployment in the Dutch East Indies in 1947, and his old army chest.

My dad was a Vietnam vet, and there were stories he took to his grave.

Yuck

The WW2 vets included my grandparents and they truly are the most amazing generation we have had! i don't want to leave out the wonderful WW1 vets. I loved my grandparents. Every evening in the summer, we would walk out to the fish pond. our grandaddy built a little dock, stocked the pond with fish, and would mow a path down for us. how amazing 😍 I miss Him and my Beautiful ❤️ Granny every single day.

@@amyball3342 we were definitely blessed with some amazing grandparents!

Yes! Seconded!

I'd put that onto a tray...

@@LeClaw Nice! Mkay...

Yes bring on the collab I say! Nice hiss 😂

Agree!!

When you next visit your father’s grave tell him I said “thanks for being there “

What does being black have to do with anything? I just can't understand this. Either you are a man or you are a woman. I just don't get this at all honestly, why would you even mention that? I am Chinese, so what? I am a man and my wife is a woman, I don';t see why race is such an issue these days. We are all inhabiting human vessels, that is crazy enough, why make it crazier?

Why not just say your dad was a navy photographer in Vietnam in the 60s? Had a friend from high school who was also a military photographer. If I had stated he was a White military photographer in Vietnam you probably would have been offended that I stressed his race. Stop making everything about your race and you'll find it won't matter as much across the board.

@@Travybear1989 These days, not so much I guess, but it would have been a rather big deal in 1968.

My uncle is there, also a Navy vet.

The Navy's official recipe was different. They'd add veggies (including tomatoes) and herbs not found in the Army meals.

Shit on a shingle.

My grandfather was a merchant marine Liberty ship skipper during the war. I'm sure he ate plenty of SOS.

Luckily Max Miller googled it for you. -_-

Fellow Scout here as well. I remember those S.O.S. camping meals we used to have, even had it at one of our Jamborees once. KP was always easy after that meal. Only had to clean one Dutch oven! 😁🤠💚

Likewise for my father. Late in the Battle of the Bulge, his hands were so frozen that he didn't know his finger was detached from his hand until he took his glove off.

Holy hell.

@@chopperdeath PC load letter... What the hell does that mean?

Bomber Harris once walked across the Sahara. After that he refused to walk anywhere he didn’t have to, and once a general officer would take his chauffeur driven Bentley even for incredibly short distances. I can see how after extreme privations like that, you could easily be entirely over hardships of that kind.

OMG! My dad loved butterscotch pudding! He didn't serve because he was born in 43 but loved bs pudding!

sounds delicious :)

i love this but i buy the canned sausage and gravy to make a sort of breakfast SOS

Oh hell yea Itll be a little harder to breathe for a while after that

but so worth it@@koraegi

do i know you from somewhere or am i tripped out@@Pufflers

Really puts things in a humbling perspective. We should all be so thankful for what we have and the hard work put in by our forefathers should be acknowledged.

Comes in a jar with an Armour label, called "Dried Beef". Pretty expensive, but a lot of flavor compared to ground meat.

Your dad's story is so similar to my dad's, growing up in poverty during the depression. He was astonished and grateful that he could eat all he wanted in the mess hall. Went into the Army with a 27" waist and came out of basic with a 30" waist. SOS was one of his favorite meals and he was gleeful when he got the recipe from an Army cook. Doing the math to reduce the quantities was hilarious.

So it’s almost like the military motivates the poor instead of actually doing something to solve the hunger crisis?

@@C.RWells Did you ever hear of the Great Depression? My father also grew up one of 5 kids with a widowed mother in the '30s and I think when he went into the Army in early 1942 it was the 1st time he had enough to eat.

Both my grandfather's were in WW2. They have both passed away. They told so many stories. Very proud of them both and all that fought.

My Grandad also served during WII. He was a truck driver in the army. He got got shot multiple times in the leg and was left for dead by the allies. The Germans picked him up, saved his leg, and then put him into POW camp. Fortunately, the war ended a few months later so he didn't spend a significant time in the camp. He rarely spoke about the war.

You mean Veteran's day?

@Zach Hayes Veterans day in the US, remembrance day in the UK.

@@PurpleHazeVanNederlands Remembrance day in Australia too

What war was this you were in?

After eating cold MRE I could imagine it would be a huge boast. Most of the time you don't get time to heat up the MRE when in the field any hot food is great.

Canadians never get their due when it comes to working alongside allies. Thank you for your service.

i literally make this at home with ground beef its freakin delicious

@Bryan Farts the make believe war of 1580. The US vs the giant plant monsters. Lost alot of good men in that war

Same here. I liked biscuits and gravy too.

My GrandDad told me about SOS too. Except he was in WWI

​@@anitafowler524 im a nurse working in geriatrics. An elderly patient told me about his father who was a ww1 veteran. He told me about the Christmas truce and what an incredible story it was!

@@Carnage7209 Those wars should have never happened at all, and I’m ashamed that my American ancestors were on the wrong side of it.

My mom would make it occasionally as well and my dad was in the Air Force and he loved it and honestly I did as well

They made and instilled the love for it in us from their experiences even if he used ground beef. Of all the things I’m thankful for, #1 is my upbringing as an Army brat for most of my youth, so many qualities we were exposed to and able to adapt to our lives. The whole family serves when you consider the deployments and the sporadic changes of assignment. I read some have difficulty with that, but I count it as one of the most awesome benefits and exposures to the rest of the world. Thank you for your whole families service and we in return get to enjoy this humorous, but awesome love of SOS that most haven’t even been lucky enough to be exposed to! :)

@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ What pray tell makes you think she hasn’t? Or are you just a bot meant to target Christians?

@@J1mInOH I think it's just a bot. Kind of ticks me off that they're always leaving those messages and things that don't have anything to do with what the video was about.

My mother also used ground beef, we called it hamburger gravy and it is still a favorite of mine today.....60 years later!!!

Same here. My mom still makes it now and then with ground beef. It's definitely one of my childhood comfort foods.

Stouffer's makes a Creamed Chipped Beef that you can find in the frozen foods section at many grocery stores. Just put the pouch in boiling water and simmer for 17 minutes and it's ready I like to serve it over rice.

My grandpa was born in 1915, but since he had a child (my father) in 1942, he was assigned to a POW camp as a cook. He would make this dish sometimes when I was a kid and he even still called it "shit on a shingle."

It's so easy to make. I made it when I was much younger and had bought Joy of Cooking. The recipe was in there. Don't know about later editions, because they are slightly different.

I thought it was a southern thing as well! My grandpa in Halletsville, Tx made it for me a few times, and is also a veteran, so it makes sense with the true origin of the dish. It’s a very cool video as well!

My Mother used to use Buddig sliced beef for SOS.

Same. My grandpa was fighting Soviets in Continuation war and he never spoke about it. Most combat role veterans don't want to talk about war for obvious reasons.

My great grandpa was the same way was a cook for his unit even serving Patton at one point. The family history ik is that he rarely cooked except when a cut of meat was to hard for great grandma to cook. Dad likes to say when my great grandpa would cook the toughest cuts of meat he would make it as tender as can be

Had a neighbor who was a cook in the Navy.

My dad was a WW2 Army vet that was at Pearl Harbor, it was one of his favorite dishes for him to make.

My grandfather also would never talk about the war. It was a shame towards the end by the time he finally started to open up, his memory went. I wonder what really happened.

May the Rest In Peace Ik they’re looking down and wishing the best for you!

My Mom made it growing up.. Dad was in the Army before they met, assigned occupation Duty in Austria just after the war.. Something I still make on occasion for my Mother in law, her dad made it all the time.. Being a WW II Navy vet.. Then my time in the US Air Force during the cold war,.. early 80's.. before they switched to using hamburger to make it.. I use the Buddig Sliced beef as it's far less salty.. but ends up tasting the same.. and real milk rather than canned evaporated milk.. Sometimes over toast, sometimes biscuits.. But it is still made in America.. at least among older family members..

It is comfort food. Imagine the small respite from hell that meal gave him if he missed it from WW2.

I was born in 1957 & my mom made this at least every once a week all through until the 1970's. In general, it wasn't that bad - which is saying a lot considering how often I had to eat it as a kid.

From your accurate directions it would appear you didn't just enjoy it as a child, but are able to make it yourself so, presumably, continue to do so as an adult!🙂 That makes me rather jealous as my own grannies were both very good cooks. The British one traditional for sure, but everything exceedingly well done....roast beef on Sunday with roasties parboiled in salty water then blasted in lard at 230C - the ideal temperature for getting a muffin tin dangerously hot and the lard smoking like an accident about to happen which told her it was time to ladle VERY carefully - but quickly - a rich eggy batter into each of the depressions a third full of molten fat and through the miasma of vaporised animal grease you could see the Yorkshires puff up nearly as fast as those smokeless fireworks🎉 The other one was Dutch so a more exotic, Indonesian spiced selection was available including a shredded beef in white sauce very similar in sound to the SOS that stars in this vid and of which you speak. There was nutmeg in it I'm sure but the major thrill of it was that it was individually portioned in clam shells and gratinated under the grill (broiler I think you call it over there 😂) with a dib of butter so it came to the table bubbling and again, hotter than the sun😂 it seems both my grannies had a death wish and despite them not having their lives cut short by their kitchen antics, I could kick myself for not paying closer attention - like you did - to how they did it❤

@@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311 Your descriptions are wonderful, the pop-overs I bet were divine....the Dutch recipes also....variety is the spice of Life!

Mine too. It was pretty salty though. She called it creamed chipped beef. No military in our family, so I don't know how she got on to it...

@@StromBugSlayerwe ate it too. It kinda just became part of the American cuisine during that time. I’m sure the recipe was on a box or something lol.

I’m 55 years old my ww2 Hungarian decent grandfather would have my nanny aka Scottish grandmother make this for us on occasion on toast I really like it thank you

Sad to say, many from the WWII generation have passed on. But I'm fortunate to have heard some stories, although most of the guys just got on with their lives after the war and didn't talk about it !

Made me miss my grandpa terribly. He was a civilian engineer on the Naval base in NYC during the war, and the stories he told were always fantastic and interesting. From the time I was about 14 or 15, we’d sit at the kitchen table with a bottle of Manischewitz wine (don’t judge; he had zero concept of legal drinking age) and stay up after Grandma went to bed talking - trading our generational knowledge. I’d explain new technology to him while he’d listen with amazement, and then he’d tell me stories of the 1940’s and 50’s. I am now 35 and he’s 11 years gone, and I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss the man.

@@julscatten2640 Lovely memories, continue to cherish them! I grew up drinking (homemade) wine at a young age. It's a cultural thing.

@@julscatten2640 My grandpa was almost too old to be drafted (they lowered the age after his number came up, but he still had to report) and as the child of his youngest child, he passed away when I was still a pre-teen, but I too both miss and appreciate him and the stories he told (he was the camp cook in an Alaskan camp). I do still make his canned tomato soup sauce and pasta though, and I'm passing it on to my kids, because when done right it's freakin' awesome!

Three of my grandparents are gone and my last grandpa lives a 12-hour plane ride away 😭

Yeah it's good with ground beef, good on rice too.

My mom would call it SOS too (my grandpa was a medic in ww2) but she stuck to the chip beef (idk I sorta liked the weird chewy beef texture)

This recipe wasn't too bad. The reason they used evaporated milk was because it was the only way to ship milk, so you could use whole milk. I grew up on evaporated milk as a kid. Dad was an Army lifer and served in Korea. When stationed in the Philippines we were restricted from drinking local milk so canned milk was all we could get. I guess the Army didn't want to get into dairy farming. Also, in the mid-60s in Germany we were limited. They shipped milk in from England but West Germany didn't test for TB in their cows so the local dairy products were verboten. He was a cook for the first 10 years and WOW, he can cook. Oh, the breads! Saying that, he used hamburger, more filling. Also, he added liquid smoke to his and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. He's still kicking it at 92 yo, but waning. Not as active anymore. But, I'm glad to have learned from a master because mom was really a lousy cook.

This is so sweet.

Non-military here. Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid, my mother made this regularly. She heard from an unnamed neighbor that it was better served over rice. (Downright lie.) Also that it was healthy. (Lie #2 - that much salt can't be good for a 5y.o. kid.) Dad said it was "tasty". (Lie #3) I never acquired a taste for it but it was one of the few dishes mother never burned. The only truth was that in the early 50s it made for a cheap meal.

My grandpa was also a cook during WWII. He was stationed at a base in Utah that did work on the Manhattan project. He and my grandma were actually married on Dec 7th (that Dec 7th). Right after they finished the ceremony a buddy of his ran into their synagogue and was shouting about Pearl Harbor having just been bombed. But no one really knew what that was at that point, so he though it was a bar on the north side of Pittsburgh.

@@jewishjedi I could definitely see a bar in Pittsburgh being named "Pearl harbor" lol.

My father who was in the Army Air Corp during WWII as a Master Sergeant loved SOS. My Mother would make it but used ground beef because it was too salty for my sister & I when she used the chipped beef. Every once it in a while to make him happy she would make a batch using the chipped beef (man that stuff is salty as she did not know about soaking it to remove some of the saltiness).

I am happy he never overseasoned like Frank Costanza. There are some war experiences you never truly come back from.

@@salvadorromero9712 LOL!

Strange that it's so unknown, since it's one of the biggest parts of military life. At least modern offerings are better than dried beef and hardtack (clunk, clunk).

I prefer having a fried egg over mine. Gives the meal a little something extra.

Was a MED200 discharge (sunken chest, episode with tear gas, Medical Colonel said it was 'never had before' asthma, all during Clinton's BRAC) in 1995 during Army Basic, so my remaining weeks were typically spent on KP. I already had some experience with mass cooking from my college studies in Nutrition, namely 'Food for 50', which gave formulas for less eaters or more, scaling up to stupid levels, and had worked in that University's cafeteria as Dishwasher, Prep and Pre-Prep. As for the military, meals were nothing fancy, and very pedestrian. Soldiers not from the South had issues, since this was at Ft Knox, Kentucky, and the serving line was more Southern in nature. Those from Guam, Hawaii and the West Coast had the most issues during mealtime.

At least on RU-vid MREs and chow are very popular video genres

Ooh, I imagine this could be pretty good in a hash.

ha! My neighbor used to say, when asked what was for dinner "cat ass & sauerkraut"...LOL

We grew up on various kinds of gravy, cream chipped beef, sausage, ground beef and even bacon! The latter was great on baked potatoes. Dad NEVER used Sh$t on a Shingle term with the kids, so I didn't hear that until I was in college.

@@alexcootieart2210 I like her.

His voice breaking slightly fucking got me

I never thought I would cry at a Tasting History video.

My Grandmother and my Mother made it with a twist. They both browned the chipped beef in the rue and then deglazed the pan with the milk and simmered until it thickened like gravy. The beef tastes better and the texture is much better. It was really sweet to see you so moved by your memories of your Grandfather.

I was a National Guard medic and we loved hanging out with the cooks. I was assigned to a infantry company so us medics and cooks where the only non infantry guys so we stuck together.

My dad was in the navy and we made that at home regularly (the ground beef version).

@@jellybeansbud3610 I had the ground beef version a few times in the Navy in the 1980s

His story is very similar to the movie Fury

@@alexhuynh1066 As I understand it, it was a common tactic of the Axis forces for defeating enemy tanks.

@@alexhuynh1066 I guess something like this happens quite often in such a conflict, on either side, in every army. I know a similar story from my Großvater, he was in the other team, the tank was a troop transporting lorry, and it was somewhere in the outskirts of Stalingrad. The shrapnel hit his lower arm, another took out his incisors. it was his ticket home to hospital.

I'm thankful he survived! And today, which is Veteran's Day, I'm remembering those who did not

He sounds like an awesome guy despite his invisible wounds. PTSD is living hell. May his memory be a blessing. 💖

My mom used to do this with beef or turkey leftovers. Never was a top 10 meal but I do miss it from time to time and I now know why she would make it. Breaks up the monotony of left overs and doesn't break the bank to change it up

@@cornfed123567 Making this with real cream and stock perfectly hides the fact that it's reheated leftover meats. And if it's started with a handful of sweated diced bacon and a bit of onion it's outright wonderful regardless of whether you serve it on toast, pasta or mashed potatoes.

My parents also made this for us. Our version was called "chip-beef on toast". For us kids it was a treat because we would toast the bread and assemble our meals at the table. I suppose the only thing I didn't like about it was the horrible canned green beans they'd serve with it.

I know this dish gets a bad reputation, but I grew up eating it and to this day I love s.o.s. try making a sandwich out of it. It's delicious. 😊

@@ansonwallace4140Where do you get your information? I can't think of ANYBODY but a bunch of prissy sissified panty waists who would give this a "bad reputation."

That's one hell of a story, Yeesh. A mortar round just slipping into that hole is both lucky and terrifying. Those men sure are lucky

I would do that too! That sounds absolutely horrifying.

My mother's uncle was one of the "Rats of Tobruk". He never talked about the war. The shit that veterans went through is unreal. And then they were expected to just go back to their pre-war life like nothing had happened.

Now the equivalent of the western military today is whether or not they will get dilatation time and whether their standard issue crossdressing is up to par.

Your Grandfather was no ordinary “Hero.” Your Grandfather saved the world!

@@fatasssquirrel1731 I can see why you are called that! SAD!

SOS - could eat it once a day every day.

My buddy's grandpa who was a German Soldier during the war said the same thing back in day. Lol. It kind of funny because him being a pow gave him a firsthand insight of the American Soldiers, which in turn helped him find out what b.s. propaganda the Nazi govt was feeding their people. He said that 1 of the soldier (a Jewish man named Eli incidentally) was such a decent guy to him, that it helped him make up his mind to move to the U.S. after the war .

@@BigDrewski1000 same thing is happening now in Ukrain.

Its funny that in ww1, both sides thought the other side had much better stuff to eat but in ww2 we can basically all agree one side had far superior food Italy

​@@infinitsai I doubt Italy fed their soliders and sailors better than the US, especially when they even struggled to ship the food across Mediterranean Sea from Italy to North Africa. I think it is the US had far superior food hands down. I will give you example. The US had a dedicated ice cream ship that was designed to produce & feed ice cream to American soldiers and sailors in Pacific Theater. Meanwhile, my grandfather who served in the Japanese Navy never had ice cream in his life up till he actually tasted one in the POW camp. A lot of Japanese soldiers left memoirs stating that they were fed better in the POW than they were in the Japanese army & navy.

@@Greenfield-yf1wh the US was a rich nation even with the depression in comperison to all adversaries and allies. And they joined the war later on, never had a home front. You naturally would have had much better rations and a higher calorie count then all other nations, provided the politics, general staff and logistics department didn't duck up big time. So yeah, unless you were in the mentioned marauders or a comperable troops situation, you were thr lucky guys.

It's funny how this recipe evolved, and had so many versions depending on who was making it and what ingredients they could afford. When I was a kid, my parents used to make a version that was basically biscuits and white gravy with ground beef and boiled peas and carrots. For "poverty food" it was pretty tasty, and I'd have no problem eating it today.

@@AngryAlfonse Yeah we would keep the toast, sauce, beef, but we would throw in potatoes as well to fill it up. As a poor family at the time it was a taste you got used to and eventually miss it after a while.

Yep, my Dad was an Army MP in the 70s and my Grandpa was in the Army & fought in Korea. Anyway my Dad would make this meal occasionally as I was growing up and he always added peas & black pepper to it. When I make it myself I also add onions to it and specifically use Rye Bread.

My great aunt made the hamburger version of this with white gravy (she used milk for the liquid). The cooks at the schools I attended made a version with brown gravy, and there were many that called it sos. My father, who was a cook in the Army National Guard (until he was demoted and transferred to artillery for mouthing off to a colonel) and later served in WWII never made it for us (I wonder why). I have since made my great aunt's version for myself and my brother and we both enjoyed it.

We did the chipped beef and ground beef versions. Interesting about raking the Spam.

Sometimes I wish I could spend my days just visiting with veterans and recording their stories. So many incredible experiences.

Thanks for his service. Big respect to him.

Well, my one of great grandfathers served in the Wehrmacht as an officer. He shot himself after the war ended. I tried to find out what he did/why he shot himself, but that remains a family secret that was lost when my grandpa/his son passed away a year ago. Another was an engineer who built infrastructure in Persia, during WW2 he built airbases in Norway for the bombing of GB. The other two were Swiss, one was a lumberjack and farmer in a village (ca. 500 people) where most people had the same surname. The last one was a dude who worked in a machine factory who built parts for stuff.

There are terrible losses on both sides in any war. Not everyone can deal with what they were forced to do. I know for a fact that many Germans were conscripted at gun point. We had friends among the German population who were forced into the Hitler Youth, and went on to become soldiers, airmen and naval personnel. Not their choice at all. It was join or die. They were some of the nicest people we met over there. I expect that your great grandfather was one of those gentle souls who was forced to carry out duties that he would never do if given a choice. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I was also a medic in the US Chair Force! I ate MRE’s exactly once… during a training exercise in Basic. My dad fought in WW2 when he was 12 and later did 2 tours in Vietnam for the US Army. When I told my dad I was joining the army after dropping out of college, my dad told me “No! Join the Chair Force! You’re not cut out for the Army!” Good call, Dad!

Yooo the egg on top is a stroke of genius! And VERY asian (they'll put a fried egg on anything lol), so I wonder if he picked that little mod up during his time in Korea 🤔

@@ValkyrieTiara probably alot of local chickens around which would mean plenty of eggs for the troops

That sounds delicious - I bet the ground beef also improved the texture problem Max mentioned. I'll have to try this with a fried egg on top, yummy!

That's how they served it to me when I was in the USAF in the early 60's. SOS with ground beef and and egg on the top. Still make that shit.

Did you kill any native Vietnamese during your deployment?

Merrill's Marauders' biggest problem wasn't the food, it was the jungle: they went into Burma with just under 3000 men and came out with 130. The vast majority of their losses (like 80%) were due to malaria and scrub typhus. More men died of disease than wounds, a record that hadn't been matched since WW1. Merrill himself caught malaria and then had a heart attack and had to be sent back to the States. It was actually a lesson on how sheer perseverance is no match for bad medical support.

@@jasoncarswell7458 yeesh

@@Broockle As a consolation prize for their sacrifice, they gave every surviving man a Bronze Star, which is normally an individual award.

those guys had it very very tough ..........they were genuine badasses

​@@slackthompson6984 Out of all of the terrains I've experienced as a former soldier, I can honestly say dense jungle is the worst. Literally everything wants to eat you, infect you or suck your blood, and there's more living creatures per square meter than any other place on earth. I'd rather cross Antarctica than spend a week in a Southeast Asian jungle, much less months and months!

It was breakfast at my house too. My Korean War-vet father called it "creamed chipped beef" until I was older, then it was always "shit on a shingle."

We had it for lunch more often and yes I believe it's called creamed chipped beef - that's what the box says now LOL

I grew up eating this for breakfast as well and no one in the family is military nor even knew it was a military meal. It's just delicious and seems to have become a common breakfast staple, at least here in scrapple land

Yes, our household as well. Not a favorite of mine, personally, I would have preferred waffles. But I did like the cream sauce on the toast.

I had something similiar as well, but instead of beef it was chicken, 'Chicken a la king'. Though we had it for dinner, not breakfast

S.O.S. I love it 😁

That's how I remember it as well. S.o.s., except we heard what it was but, we were not allowed to say it. Except, my brother and I would say quietly to each other, "Oh, this shit again." Lol.

My neighbor growing up used to make it, they called it s.o.s too. She wasn't my mom tho, so she told me what it meant. I called it poop on a panel after that. I love childhood memories.

I grew up on it. We called it S.O.S too 😊

@@robzombie5 My brother would say "sh" and i would say "it"... i was the one who learned mom's recipes tho. Me and my brother both ended up learning to cook. I was the one that got $30 a week to cook for the family tho :) Been cooking since like 11-12 lol. Edit : I started working in my Chinese friend's parents business when I was 12. My parents taught me how to set a table, prep, cook, serve, and clear a table in like 4th grade. $30 was a new video game every other week.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

That’s hilarious lol

Yup......I served on 4 different submarines during my time in the Navy, and invariably Saturday breakfast was SOS, followed by 4 hrs of "field day" (known to civilians as CLEAN THE HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING), and then "Sliders and fries" for lunch.

Good to know that the Aubrey Maturnin books are spot on for sailors having very rigid expectations for particular foods on particular days, with the promise of surliness if it didn’t happen

My parents did the same, a shitload of ground beef mixed with added salt and pepper as well as milk and lard. Had my first heart attack recently, was a bitch I will admit, thought I was going to die. Not having this again personally, raw veggies don't make me feel like I am going to die after a lifetime of meat and potatoes. i wish I changed diets earlier but here we are, dying now. I am a fucking idiot.

@@Travybear1989 don't forget to work on that cardio man. Glad you made it though. I feel like one of the largest issues with heart attack sufferers, is that they ignored cardio for too long. Keep up the good work,.

And thus you had the wonderful chance of seeing THE BAND OF BROTHERHOOD in action. Much love and bearings to you.

I meant bearings. Many ,many bearings to you.

Thanks to your dad, mine and SO many others!

My father was a POW for nearly three years in Germany. He was captured during one of the most savage battles of the war in which his regiment was slaughtered on the beach. Toward the end of the war he was forced to march hundreds of miles in brutal winter conditions without adequate clothing and little food. He never spoke about his war experiences. Never. It was all bottled up. He died at age 55 in 1973 when I was 16. As he was dying in the hospital he started to hallucinate. One day when I visited him, his hands had been bound to his hospital bed and he was pointing to something in the distance and shouting, "Look! look, they're going to kill us." I assumed he was reliving his capture by the Germans in 1942. Maybe if he had lived to an older age he might've been able to talk about his experiences more. I have been able to piece together much of his story through various forms of research over the past 50 years, but there are still so many questions I wish I could ask him.

@andrewbird57 your dad was a hero , not known by many but your family does

I was thinking the same thing.

I can imagine Max in front of a camera with Steve, Max looking somewhat against his will yet still willing, both eating a double decadent field ration from 2006, only slightly rancid, but still perfectly good, packed with lots of energy to keep them on the go. Sprawled out-how else-nicely, on a tray.

As soon as he talked about MRE's I immediately thought if Steve. Glad ha got the shout out.

Nice hiss, let's get that onto a tray o7

@@nessamillikan6247 I read that as 'eat a double DEODORANT field ration' and still went: 'Yup, sounds like a SteveMRE thing to do, alright' before catching myself and having to double back.

Grandpa made this for me in early '70s. I liked it. I think he said SOS but he also just said chipped beef.

​@@nitaniceyeah its not sos without the chipped beef

My mom added peas to the recipe.

my mom made it too !!!!

Yep mom made this in the 70s and it was called SoS in our house

you ever been to Yokota AB? Sudden slightly unrelated question ik, but I live near Yokota and was curious lol

@@mcfarofinha134 No, I haven't. The only overseas AB I lived in was in Germany--Wiesbaden. And that was when I was in my late teens just out of High School in 1965. thanks for asking, though.

Hmm, I wonder if your father was one of the bombers who St. Padre Pio turned back from bombing his monastery & the town of San Giovanni del Rotundo. There's an incredibly famous incident where a bunch of American bombers and their commander testified on record that they were met in the air by a flying monk who forced them to turn away. After the war, St. Padre Pio and the commander became friends. You should Google the story. It's pretty awesome. Padre Pio is one of the greatest saints who has ever lived, and it's wonderful and amazing that God continues to work extraordinary supernatural miracles even in these times, with like, flying monks and stuff, lol. He never stopped. It's just that fewer and fewer people have taken notice. But this particular story is well known and well documented, with the airmen involved going on the record.

Same. I made it for dinner literally last night. Dad was Navy. We do add Worcestershire to ours though.

Yeah, Army Brat here. Also a Veteran. Dad was a cook, then off to the Korean War in infantry. He switched to the intelligence branch. Dad always made the stuff when we were kids. Using ground beef and he added a little liquid smoke. By the time I joined in 1974, SOS was off the menu.

Even scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, and pancakes can get old when that IS the breakfast menu day in and day out. On the positive side, when you are in a hurry one can always slam a sausage patty between two pieces of toast, drown it in cheap hot sauce, wash it down with black coffee, and call it breakfast. This got me through Navy boot camp...

Sh%t on a shingle, from my great-grandpa's point of view, was seen with such uncertainty because first: you usually knew it was beef, but never knew what cut it was, so for all you knew you could be fed beef fat and you would probably not know. (corned beef was called "monkey meat" for this exact reason too) and two: it is really bland. just like bechamel cream, if you don't add something, anything, even salt, in the cream to give it some taste, you'll feel like you're eating a toast witha really fat meat yoghurt on top. but yeah, if you season it a bit, it becomes a simple confort food.

@@kevincrosby1760 I bought a case of modern british rations recently and the main thing I've learnt from it is just how quickly monotony and repetition will ruin food. The first one I had, I was like "Wow this is honestly kinda delicious, I don't get why people complain about it all the time!". At this point, I can absolutely see how you'd go insane eating those for days or weeks.

Nothing wrong with high salt content in your food sir. It's the sugar you ought to be bothered about.

@@carnedulce *High blood pressure has entered the chat*... perhaps, if you're eating all that salt, you oughta change your name to MeatSweats...

If anyone wants to try this the easy way, Stouffers makes creamy chopped beef TV dinners that are the same thing..

@@jonslg240 It just isn't mom's!!

Blegh.. creamed spinach

@@burpostockings Anything made by a bad cook sucks. Creamed spinach is delicious if done right.

​@@burpostockingscreamed spinach is only as gross as you want it to be. palak/saag paneer is technically a creamed spinach dish and it's nothing like you're expecting when you say "creamed spinach"

I am looking at this video and yes i'm thinking to myself this looks delish!

Pretty much everyone who has served learns how it is made 😉 after all, you eat something that many times and you figure it out lol

Another gross nickname for the food is "creamed foreskins"!

Shit on a Shingle! Shit on a Shingle! There!

Yeah it’s pretty tasty

I swear he's Bob Ross reincarnated.

@@wingracer1614 I always refer to him as the Bob Ross of MREs. 😂

The rations from the Boer War were... dry...

That man has guts of steel.

Nice!

Yes, the resemblance is amazing!

No doubt who’s YOUR grandpa! You two got the handsome genes! 😊

Ditto. Better than Vienna sausages. Haha

SOS is definitely one of my favorite foods. So simple and basic, yet so tasty. Can't forget those DFAC omlettes either. Sometimes even the BBQ ribs if your cooks knew what they were doing (had some GOOOOD ribs that everyone bragged about before entering the box in JRTC at Ft Polk... And it's rare when you brag about something like that made by cooks in the military while in the field)

I work for a contractor in the airforce. It is definitely popular when I make it!

@@TheTardis157 Hell yeah!! Thank you.

So, you mean to tell me that the US military eats a classic American dish? Its just biscuits and sausage gravy.

That's how I make it too, but I've made the original version like this video and it's pretty good too. Although I use whole milk in mine.

Hoorah to you sir 👍

While I was in the Army, our cooks made it with ground beef and put it on biscuits (if they could get a hold of them).

wow he has a wiki

Thank you, Dack! Happy Veteran’s Day.

We did the same thing...I'm not related to you..am I?? Lol

It was comfort food to a lot of people who knew REAL HUNGER.

Same! I made this in a fit of nostalgia recently and found that the chipped beef has changed so much it’s barely recognizable. It is way more like formed mystery meat now versus what in the 70s was almost like thin, salty AF jerky.

Marine Corp father would make SOS.

@@capricehutton1785 My Dad was a Marine as well....He made sure we all knew what we were missing!1 Lol Good times

The SOS in the ARMY was fantastic. I compare all others to their version. I love SOS....

The field cooks got some spicy pills from Germans and put some in

Do it! I'm glad your grandmas in good health, tell us what what you learn! 🥰

Condolences to you

@@bryanwong2575 Thank you 🙏🏻

@kava Thank you very much, I appreciate it. I’m sure he’s happier wherever he is now.

Just make it in his honour. People don’t life on in their physical bodies, but in the memory of their little quirks, and the impact they left on others. It seems your granpy is still very much with us

Rip grandpa.

Yes, there is no doubt the US contributed significantly to the British invention and development of RADAR.

@@uncletiggermclaren7592 there is no such thing as true or false. Only narratives

@@uncletiggermclaren7592 COME ON ENGLAND!! YOU TELL EM

@@Kevin607086 This is a false statement you make, and that is all it is.

The Brits were literally using radar years before the US even entered the war.

Thanks for the early support and now Brittany

@@TastingHistory I second that response Max. It has been very gratifying to watch you prosper from all your hard work. Those first weeks were pretty white knuckle for you to see if you could survive financially this way.

Same here. Mom also directed a Girl Scout camp and she insisted that it be served once every 2 week session. Didn't phase me one bit, most of the other girls felt differently, however.

I think Gramps would be proud ❤

Funny! But I like it too. I was born in 1962.

Likewise, my dad used to make it up when I was young. And it was pretty much one of only three things he was good at cooking. I'm sure he learned that from his dad, who served in WWII.

I'm thinking that the war had a great impact on the GI's. That amidst all the death and suffering, those foods were like a godsend to them.

Like in the Korean War, a lot of Koreans still think very fondly of SPAM. It's the kind of food that it's objectively mediocre at best, but that was the food that undeniably kept us going all the way to victory.

I have to ask, Since your dad was in ww2 are you a Vietnam Vet? Also are you a boomer?

Same here, dad didn't cuss around us but he called SOS shit on a shingle. You were lucky to have him so long, I lost my dad back in 1980.

@@davidratte1959 I'm just barely a boomer, but too young for Vietnam.

@@Javaman92 Thanks. I do feel lucky to have him for so long. I'm sorry you didn't have more time with your dad.

Beautiful story

Same here! 😊

Spam and eggs is a close second for a morning after meal.

Me too! My maternal grandfather was a US Army cook from before WWII until the mid-60s. We also used ground beef. I still occasionally make, er "hamburger gravy".

Same!

We had it with pastrami or corned beef, and added peas. Damn, I'm gonna have to make it sometime!

We called it Perky on toast. Perky was a dog/cat soft food. We didn't eat the pet food, but had left over chopped ham with either white sauce or mushroom soup. Depended how close to payday for my dad.

@@catslove3884 Proximity to payday is an underappreciated aspect of modern cuisine.

@@SewardWriter yes. As I child I would ask if we could get such and such. Mum would say "we have to wait until we get the Baby Cheque".

Yeah I was in air cadets and the military base has an amazing kitchen and we got the old rations for camps. They tend to plan for logistics such as the soldiers needing to eat pretty well these days, as anyone with a cat knows the better fed animal always wins the fight. But the MRE stuff works really if you're part of a scouting party or something

My mother was given a copy of the Navy cookbook as a wedding gift from her mother and still has it. It actually came to be helpful years later when she was working in a school cafeteria. Occasionally they were given a little leeway with the menu and they were able to use the cookbook recipes without a lot of changes. We had SOS at home during winter and Mom would use whatever meat we had extra of or just needed to be used. Sometimes it was beef, sometimes it was deer meat and sometimes it was pork sausage.

T