Snickerdoodle not American?, Shit on a Shingle in WWII?

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 18, 2004, at 1:03 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Snickerdoodle not American?, Shit on a Shingle in WWII?
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>
> CORRECTION: Pam's Real Thai is on W. 49th, not 59th. Finger drift on
> keyboard.
>
> All right, I just got back from the dentist and I'm ready to endure
> more
> pain. Let's look at the book I wrote:
>
> SNICKERDOODLE--Not in the index. Just amazing. All my work. So what is
> it, a
> Chinese food?
>
> SHIT ON A SHINGLE--I saw this in the canned beef entry.  "Creamed
> chipped
> beef on toast was served so often in U.S. military mess halls during
> World War II
> that it came to be known by the earthy name 'shit on a shingle.'"
> Everybody
> knows it's from World War ONE. "S.O.S." is quite famous.

FWIW, by the late '50's, at the latest, a similar dish was prepared
using hamburger instead of chipped beef, whatever that is. (I assume
that it's not another name for hamburger.) The old name was transferred
to the new dish. I hesitate to admit it, but I found S.O.S. to be
relatively palatable, especially considering that it was prepared by
the cubic yard, using  powdered milk left over from WWII as the
"cream." It was served on a regular basis, but the foodstuff most often
served in my day was potatoes, served in one form or another as part of
*every single meal*. S.O.S. was served only at breakfast and not on a
daily basis. And S.O.S. is famous enough that I first heard of it when
I was in grade school in the '40's.

-Wilson Gray

>
> ANTS ON A LOG--This popular children's food is not here.
>
> S'MORES--Let's look at the index. Smoothies...Smorgasbord... Am I
> missing
> something? S'MORES! American food? Two volumes? Anywhere?
>
> SUKIYAKI--I found the first citations for this in the Chicago Tribune
> and New
> York Times. It's not here in the Japanese Food in America section.
> Nowhere.
>
> It's even worse than that...Let's see. "Milk shake." "Shirley Temple."
> "Jelly
> beans." My work's gotta be there...
>