Maconochie

For other uses, see Alexander Maconochie.

Maconochie

A can of Maconochie issued as a military ration, displayed in the Imperial War Museum
Type	Stew
Place of origin	Scotland
Created by	Maconochie Company
Main ingredients	Turnips, carrots, potatoes

Maconochie was a canned British stew of sliced turnips, carrots, potatoes, onions, haricot beans, and beef in a thin broth, named after the Aberdeen-based Maconochie Company that produced it. It gained recognition as a widely-issued military ration for British soldiers during the Boer War[1] and World War I. There was also a French version called Maconóochie^[citation needed].

Although the stew was tolerable, most soldiers detested it. As one soldier put it, "warmed in the tin, Maconochie was edible; cold, it was a man-killer." Others complained about how 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 their money stuffed into a couple of kit-bags round their necks and chucked into the deepest hole in no-mans land.[2]

Some product versions that contained turnips were said to possess an unpleasant smell when combined with beans. Barbara Buchan from the Fraserburgh Heritage Centre confirmed that their records contain only a single positive response to the product.[3]

An alternative view is voiced by Lance-Corporal Henry Buckle in his diary of April 1915: "Had a glorious meal today, got a Machonachie [sic] ration from some engineers in the wood, a round tin containing meat, spuds carrots, beans and gravy, enough for two in a tin. This is the first time we (the poor infantry) have seen one, had a real blow out, must try and get another. They are the goods, believe me!"[4]

See also

• List of stews
• Bully beef
• Potted meat food product

Notes and references

1. Grant, Maurice Harold; Maurice, John Frederick (1906). History of the war in South Africa, 1899-1902. Vol. 4. London Hurst and Blackett. p. 567.
2. Mankowitz, Wolf (1956). My Old Man's a Dustman. Andre Deutsch. p. 19.
3. "World War One: The dubious reputation of Maconochie's stew". BBC News. 23 April 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
4. Buckle, Henry (2012). A Tommy's Sketchbook. The History Press. p. 68.

External links

• Trench Food
• Glossary of Australian military jargon of World War I
• Replicas of World War I artifacts, including cans of Maconochie