You're not alone, mollyanne!
I knew there would be some folklore surrounding it. That's a good story about adding sawdust to the gravy.
Yep, I was just tryin' to be polite about it.Creamed chipped beef on toast was served often by military messes. The soldiers gave it the name "sh*t on a shingle" or SOS, the shingle is the toast.
...Here in My South, Sawmill Gravy is sausage gravy usually served over biscuits...'Country gravy' (aka milk gravy, cream gravy) is the same basic gravy without sausage, and is generally served over country fried steak...biscuits too.
Would spam fritter be SOS?
I make a Tasso/Andouille gravy (no trinity) to serve over grits...Good eats!!
Growing up our version of SOS was Creamed Hamburger on Toast. Pretty simple- brown some burger, season with S&P, add milk then beat in some whitewash (ie a slurry of flour and water). We served it over toast made from whatever bread was in the house, usually something my mom made from scratch. Since I'm a chef, when I reproduced this family recipe at home I use bechamel sauce, but beyond that I don't change it. Okay, maybe I'll add a tiny smidgeon of sage but not much- it shouldn't taste like sausage gravy.
Just to remind old salts, SOS was just about the most expensive meal served in the galleys of U.S. Navy ships, and yet more it was also the butt (so to speak) of the most jokes about navy food.
You try buying enough chipped beef to feed one hundred or more hungry sailors SOS, two or three time a week all year long!
When I was a child, growing up in the military, my Mom made the best SOS (and yes, excrement for the first, toast for shingle). She'd buy dried roast beef slices in a jelly-jar type jar. Milk gravy, some chopped green onions, but she always topped it all with some slices of hard-boiled eggs, and always had a thing about fresh ground black pepper. Come to think of it, I haven't made it for hubby in years, and he'd probably like it again. Oh, yes, now that I think about it, she'd sometimes add some peas.
Although the dried beef wasn't cheap, you used very little of it because it was so darned salty. Do they even make the stuff any more?
Yes, it always did remind me a lot of various southern sausage gravies.
When I was a child, growing up in the military, my Mom made the best SOS (and yes, excrement for the first, toast for shingle). She'd buy dried roast beef slices in a jelly-jar type jar. Milk gravy, some chopped green onions, but she always topped it all with some slices of hard-boiled eggs, and always had a thing about fresh ground black pepper. Come to think of it, I haven't made it for hubby in years, and he'd probably like it again. Oh, yes, now that I think about it, she'd sometimes add some peas.
Although the dried beef wasn't cheap, you used very little of it because it was so darned salty. Do they even make the stuff any more?
Yes, it always did remind me a lot of various southern sausage gravies.