Maconochie

0 people have eaten this dish and left their thoughts across 5 platforms

Synthesised from Google · TripAdvisor · Reddit · Yelp · 1 food blog · Updated August 2026

The story the reviews tell

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.

What makes this version distinct

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

Signature elements