[Ads-l] Antedating of "mystery meat"

[Steven Losie]

MYSTERY MEAT (OED3, 1968)

Green's Dictionary of Slang has precursors going back to 1901, with the
specific phrase "mystery meat" first cited in the 29 September 1957 issue
of the Washington Post.

Here are a few antedatings. These first three might be a stretch, since
there is a specific mystery about the meat being discussed, rather than the
phrase being used in a more general sense of low-grade meat often served in
institutional settings:

[begin quote]
[headline] Analysis Reveals Mystery Meat Similar To Hog Fat

The mystery of the piece of meat which highway workmen said was blasted
from solid rock near Harrisonburg the other day appeared less of a mystery
today after a report on an analysis from the state agricultural laboratory.
[end quote]
Source: Roanoke (Va.) Times, 5 Apr 1940, p.2, col.5 (newspapers.com)

[begin quote]
[headline] 'Mystery' meat lands 2 in jail

Two thousand pounds of meat delivered by a "mysterious man in a big black
van" yesterday landed two ambitious amateur butchers in jail on charges of
state health code violations.
[end quote]
Source: Los Angeles Daily News, 10 Apr 1945, p.13, col.4 (newspapers.com)

[begin quote]
[headline] Mystery Meat From Greece Barred
Uncle Sam yesterday put the brakes on a mysterious flood of food packages
for the United States, which has been pouring across the Atlantic for
months from Greece, a country battling starvation and scheduled to receive
millions of dollars in American aid.
[end quote]
Source: New York Daily News, 24 June 1947, p.68, col.1  (ProQuest)
Author: Joseph Martin

This instance more directly references low-grade meat:

[begin quote]
I can remember the time when anything red and squooshy was called
Hamburger. But with the high price of beef there are many, many kinds of
Mystery Meat.
[end quote]
Source: The Berkeley (Cal.) Gazette, 30 Nov 1950, p.2, col.8 (newspapers.com
)
Article title: Strictly From Hunger
Author: Larry Blake

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