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Best Maconochie in San Francisco

“Warmed in the tin, Maconochie was edible; cold, it was a man-killer.”

Maconochie

What the real thing tastes like

Maconochie was a brand of canned stew containing sliced turnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, haricot beans, and beef in a thin broth, named after the Aberdeen-based Maconochie Company that produced it. The stew gained recognition as a widely-issued military ration for British soldiers during the Boer War and World War I. Although the stew was said to be tolerable, most soldiers detested it. As one British soldier put it, "warmed in the tin, Maconochie was edible; cold, it was a man-killer." Others complained that the potatoes appeared to be unidentifiable black lumps. The congelation of fat above indistinguishable chunks of meat and vegetables led one reporter to describe it as "an inferior grade of garbage". A soldier named Calcutt claimed "the Maconochie's stew ration gave the troops flatulence of a particularly offensive nature." Though we reckoned in the trenches the Maconochie tin of meat and veg was a banquet in its own way, but most of the contractors who fed us should have had

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Maconochie was a tinned beef stew that sustained British soldiers through the Boer War and World War I—sliced turnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, haricot beans, and beef suspended in a thin broth. The dish arrived warm enough to eat straight from the tin, but cold it became something else entirely: a gelatinous mass where fat congealed over unidentifiable chunks, potatoes turned black and mysterious, and the turnip-bean combination released an unpleasant smell. Most soldiers found it barely tolerable, though a lucky few who scored a tin from the engineers' supply considered it a genuine feast.

Order it here when it has

  • surprisingly filling (enough for two)
  • warm and edible straight from tin
  • rare moments of soldier satisfaction

Walk away when you see

  • unidentifiable meat chunks
  • black potato lumps
  • offensive flatulence
  • unpleasant smell when cold
  • congealed fat coating
  • widely detested by troops

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