Embalmed Beef
EMBALMED BEEF
EMBALMED BEEF. During the Civil War Northern soldiers often called the meat canned by Chicago packers and issued to the Union "embalmed beef." Because of the large surpluses of canned meat in the army depots at the close of that war, the soldiers in the Spanish-American War insisted that the canned meat issued to them in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines was "embalmed beef" of Civil War issue. During World War I, immense quantities of Argentine beef were canned and issued to the Allied armies. The British soldiers called it "bully beef," but the American soldiers, accustomed to red meats, called it contemptuously "embalmed beef" or "monkey meat."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Coppin, Clayton A., and Jack High. The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.
Okun, Mitchell. Fair Play in the Marketplace: The First Battle for Pure Food and Drugs. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986.
H. A.DeWeerd/a. e.
See alsoCivil War ; Meat Inspection Laws ; Meat Packing ; Pure Food and Drug Movement ; Spanish-American War ; World War I .