Shit on a Shingle

Shit on a Shingle is a US military food term. It was often shortened to SOS.

Variations on what food exactly this meant depended on which service you were in, and when, but it was often used to mean a breakfast dish.

Creamed Chipped Beef

This dish first appeared in the military universe in the 1910 edition of the "Manual for Army Cooks." It was beef stock and evaporated milk thickened with a roux, seasoned with parsley and pepper. The chipped beef was added just before serving, so that the salty taste of it didn't permeate the sauce overly. By the 1940s, the sauce recipe had become thicker, and the parsley was dropped. Army cooks, even though not directed to do so by the recipes, would apparently often soak the beef overnight in water to leach some of the excess salt out.

In the American Navy, they called Creamed Chipped Beef "Creamed Foreskins on Toast" (aka CFSOT, pronounced "sif-sot") or just "Foreskins on Toast (aka "FOT.")

You can now buy canned, ready-made Creamed Chipped Beef. Nestlé sells one, with the beef in a "seasoned white sauce." They add white cheese in their version for extra interest.

You can also buy frozen versions, and pouch heat and serve versions.

Some people like to garnish their SOS with boiled, chopped egg for more flavour and colour.

Some people at home made a version using a can of cream of mushroom soup as the sauce, adding only part of the milk that the soup called for.

Creamed Chipped Beef was also served at school cafeterias.

Creamed Ground Beef

The American navy tended instead to use the term "Shit on a Shingle" for a minced beef and tomato sauce with onion and nutmeg in it, served over toast. The sauce would be thickened with flour or cornstarch.

Beginning in the late 1960s, some parts of the US military began to use hamburger as well for the dish that people called "Shit on a Shingle." The army version with ground beef stuck with a cream sauce, made from evaporated milk and beef stock thickened with a roux. You fried the ground beef, drained excess fat, stirred flour into the ground beef, letting its fat interact with the flour to make the roux, and then made the sauce from there, either with evaporated milk or reconstituted powdered milk.

Shit on a Raft

The British Royal Navy's version was sauteed kidneys on toast, which they called "Shit on a Raft (SOR.)

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