--- title: "Mincemeat and stewed prunes: the best and worst from the Army’s 1942 cookbook" description: "Mincemeat? Stewed prunes? A 1942 Army cooking manual has those recipes and more, from spaghetti to roast duck to brains." date: "2022-10-11" modified: "2022-10-11" authors: - name: "Max Hauptman" job_title: "Breaking News Reporter" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/max-hauptman/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/history/army-cookbook-1942-food/" categories: - "Culture" - "History" - "Past Conflicts" - "World War II" --- # Mincemeat and stewed prunes: the best and worst from the Army’s 1942 cookbook ![]() *Engineer soldiers in a "chow line" during construction of the Alaskan-Canadian Highway, Aug. 21, 1942. (U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum)* Army food. Sometimes it is actually halfway decent; sometimes, well, it’s edible if you’re cold, wet and starving. And the less said about those vegetable omelet MREs the better. So, what was on the menu 80 years ago? Technical Manual 10-405, published in 1942, is the Army’s guide on how to be a cook. It’s almost 300 pages – when has the Army ever been known for brevity? – of everything a cook would need to know to run a kitchen: how to set up a field stove, how to butcher different kinds of animals, how to properly store different kinds of foods, and how to keep the kitchen running at maximum levels of Army efficiency. “A thoughtless cook often leaves a trail of unnecessarily spoiled utensils behind him, thereby justly incurring the resentment of the kitchen police,” as the manual [says](). It’s also filled with dozens of recipes, essentially anything and everything an Army cook could possibly prepare. They range from something simple like cream of celery soup to something fancy like roast duck. For breakfast, perhaps start with something like chipped beef on toast. Melt butter fat in a pan with flour, add milk and beef stock, simmer and then add beef. Season with parsley and pepper, and serve on toast. Delicious? Disgusting? Both? There’s a reason why this kind of dish and similar variations earned the nickname “[shit on a shingle]()” and are also still served today. > [**Subscribe to Task & Purpose Today**]()**. Get the latest military news, entertainment, and gear in your inbox daily.** If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, there’s also the delightful-sounding brain and eggs. Fry up your beef brains with some bacon, add some slightly beaten eggs and serve on toast. Yum. Staying on the organ meat theme, perhaps it’s worth considering liver and bacon. Simmer some livers in water and then remove them before rolling them in flour. Then fry up with some bacon and onions. As the manual says, serve hot, because nobody wants to eat cold liver. As a dessert, and possibly to clear one’s system out, the manual offers a recipe for stewed prunes. To feed 100 soldiers, boil seven pounds of prunes and then cook until tender. Add three pounds of sugar and three lemons, and let sit overnight. Delicious. Of course, it’s not all bad. The recipe for oxtail soup actually sounds halfway decent, although in 2022 one can feel free to use more than just salt and pepper to season. Pineapple ice, which is just gelatin, sugar and diced pineapple brought to a boil and then frozen, doesn’t sound bad on a hot summer day. Cooking for mass numbers of people is never going to be easy, so maybe it’s best to avoid something like oyster stew and stick with a simple meatloaf when it comes to feeding hundreds of soldiers. And in 2022, be thankful the mess hall – or “[warrior restaurants]()” – aren’t serving brains. You can peruse the cookbook below: ## The latest on Task & Purpose - **These are the** **worst pieces of military gear** **ever issued, according to veterans** - **The Marine Corps’ new littoral combat team is** [**changing the Marine rifle squad**]() - **How Air Force maintainers achieved a rare** [**perfect inspection**]() **on a 49-year-old aircraft** - **Why** [**hundreds of Camp Pendleton Marines**]() **have been stuck in sweltering hot barracks for years** - **The Air Force has** [**finally rescued a stranded Osprey**]() **aircraft from a remote Norwegian island** **Want to write for Task & Purpose?**[ **Click here**]()**. Or check out the latest stories on**[ **our homepage.**]() ## Author Max Hauptman is a former breaking news reporter at Task & Purpose. He previously worked at The Washington Post as a Military Veterans in Journalism Fellow, as well as covering local news in New England. ### Author social links [Twitter]() [Instagram]()