Chipped beef on toast (or creamed chipped beef on toast) is a foodstuff comprising a creamy sauce and re-hydrated slivers of dried beef, served on toasted bread. In military slang it is commonly referred to by the dysphemism "**** On a Shingle" (SOS). Chipped beef is also often served on English muffins, biscuits, homefries, and in casseroles.
Wentworth and Flexner cite no origin, but note that "shingle" for slice of toast has had "some use since c1935" in the U. S. Army, mostly in the expression "**** on a shingle," and that the latter had "wide World War II Army use."[2]
In the United States, chipped beef on toast is emblematic of the military experience, much as yellow pea soup is in Finland. "Chipped beef on toast (S. O. S.)" is, in fact, the title of a book of military humor.[3] In his World War II book Band of Brothers Stephen E. Ambrose evokes the military basics:
“ At the end of May, the men of Easy packed up their barracks bags and … [took] a stop-and-go train ride to Sturgis, Kentucky. At the depot Red Cross girls had coffee and doughnuts for them, the last bit of comfort they would know for a month. They marched out to the countryside and pitched pup tents, dug straggle trenches for latrines, and ate the Army's favorite meal for troops in the field, creamed chipped beef on toast, universally known as SOS, or **** on a Shingle.[4] ”
In a 2004 story, Chuck Palahniuk talks about deprecated language in "the new and politically corrected Navy" where he says that in official theory, but not in practice,
“ the dark-blue coveralls crewmen wear while on patrol are no longer called "poopie suits." Crewmen who serve on the mess deck are no longer "mess cranks." Sauerbraten is not "donkey dick." Ravioli isn't "pillows of death." Creamed chipped beef on toast isn't "**** on a shingle."[5]
