Prompted by a sidetrack discussion in the Abraham Lincoln thread, I thought I would post a couple genuine submarine recipes for SOS and its close cousin Foreskins. These are scaled down recipes from a book called Submarine Cuisine compiled from actual US Navy Mess Specialists. These may be of interest to @Common_Tater and @CalMeacham. I have made and enjoyed both and they are really pretty close to what I remember being served in the 80s and 90s
SOS (Minced Beef)
1/2 lb ground beef
1 large onion chopped
~2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp shortening
20 oz can tomatoes
pinch of mace or nutmeg
salt and pepper
water as needed
Make a roux with flour and shortening. Braise beef and onions until browned.
Add tomatoes, spices and water to desired consistency
Simmer 10-15 minutes stirring often.
Serve over toast
Foreskins (Creamed dried beef)
1/2 stick butter
Flour
2 cups Milk
1/2 lb Dried sliced beef (ground beef can be substituted - browned and drained)
pinch of white pepper
Combine flour with butter to make a roux.
If using dried beef boil in a small amount of water and let stand for 5 minutes.
Add warm milk to roux and whisk into a medium white sauce. Add flour to thicken as needed.
Add softened dried beef and white pepper to taste
Simmer and stir often for 10 minutes.
Serve over toast
Both these recipes are credited to WWII veteran Charles Brown who served aboard USS Puffer (SS-268), USS Bowfin (SS-287), USS Razorback (SS-394), USS Pomfret (SS-391) and USS Bergall (SS-320)
Please do share any recipes you may have for galley favorites.
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.”
— War Department Technical Manual ™ 10-412, Army Recipes by the U.S. War Department, 15 August 1944
Doesn’t look like much changed (quantities vary of course)
Various in season veggies like swedes, turnips, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks, onions, carrots
Potatoes for mashing
Flour, butter and milk for sauce
Strong grated cheddar cheese
Herbs such as sage or thyme for sauce
Method
Peel washed potatoes (save peelings to bake in oven with salt and herbs)
Dice potatoes and cook in salted water until soft
Mash with butter, a little milk and add salt
Peel, wash and dice in season veggies as applicable and boil until nearly cooked
Drain and place in pie dish
Make sauce-Use dessert spoon of butter and melt in pan, add two dessert spoons of flour and mix and slowly add in milk, keep stirring. Add salt and herbs and pepper
Pour thick sauce over the vegetables
Put mashed potato in piping bag (baggy with a hole in the corner)
Pipe over the top of veggies and sauce
Finish by placing some grated cheese over the top
Place in oven at 220 C for around 30 minutes until the potatoes have browned
Rationing didn’t fully end in Britain until 1954. There’s a classic picture of rationed WWII foods, showing a few items, e.g. butter, sugar, tea, a few strips of bacon, and an egg. Doesn’t look too onerous till it’s revealed that is the entire ration for a week.
Dad served on a USN diesel boat. He said they would load up foods and store them everywhere, in the showers, head, bunks, any spare space was fair game for food storage at the start of a cruise. He also said the very first thing they would do once they got out to sea was throw all the “cutters and canners” grade Beef over the side. That made for a little more room right away, as it was basically inedible anyway.
I recall reading something long ago wherein the British author claimed that rationing was intended to be sure that the wealthy did not deprive others by stocking up. I do recall reading several times in different books that the only thing Churchill truly feared was submarine warfare and getting enough food into Britain.
Food storage didn’t change much on modern nuclear submarines. For normal weekly operations (out for no more than a few weeks), we had a walk-in reefer (refrigerator), walk-in freezer, and some storage spaces for food.
For a deployment (4-6 months), it was radically different. Both reefers were converted to freezers, so no fresh refrigerated food was available from day one. Food was stored in all available storage holds, then everywhere else. Literally. Every passageway deck got a layer of #10 cans (which holds about 3 quarts and measures about 6 inches in diameter and 7 inches high). Over that was placed thick rubber matting. So every passageway lost about 7” of height, so you had to constantly duck your head. This method allowed for the storage of many thousands of cans of food. So much food was brought on board that we had to take it into account to get the ballasting correct before heading to sea and submerging.
We generally tried to avoid storing food in the engineroom, other than crates of eggs in the lower level near the bilge. These were stacks of eggs, about a gross of eggs per layer. They would last for a few weeks at least before they had to switch to canned powdered eggs.
Because of the lack of refrigeration, milk was powdered from the start. It was awful, and so was referred to as “plastic cow.” It was so bad that some crew members gave up valuable personal storage space to bring their own commercial brand of powdered milk that was far superior.
He had some interesting stories to say the least. He did mention the chow was pretty good on a submarine, at least relative to the regular Navy. And they got paid more than regular Navy. Said they sometimes took off their Dolphins off their uniform, because of petty jealousies in bars or taverns, the regular swabbies wanted to get into a fight when everybody was on Liberty. I think he mentioned they had a lot of Ice cream, which was always well tolerated.
All of that matches my experience on attack submarines. The one exception was John Marshall which was a Lafayette class boomer converted to an SSN primarily to launch SEALs. We had plenty of storage space but it was still maximized for extended deployments and the addition of the SDV crew. I used to bring cans of evaporated milk with me. I was a non qual spook rider so sharing it bought lots of good will. It didn’t last long, but the good will did.
NIDO or PEAK are whole milk powder. Non-fat dried milk powder is fairly worthless for anything, really. The military buys a lot of UHT boxed milk, it’s OK but has a bit of a weird flavor.
That tracks with what a former co-worker claimed. He was a cook on a US sub, and said they got the best food. He said it was a matter of morale, because conditions on a sub tended to be a lot more stressful than on other vessels.