All right, I will be the one to gird my loins and enter the fray in honor of that great gourmet delicacy so indelicately called S.O.S in some quarters.

Now a distinction. There are actually not one but two separate preparations, each of which, deservedly or undeservedly, receives the appellation "S.O.S."

One of them is the stuff I endured while in the Army, which was just what I'd describe as crumbled hamburger in a tasteless white sauce on soggy bread, toasted or untoasted. This indeed deserves the opprobrium often heaped upon it, and I have no quarrel with those who execrate that stuff.

But my fancy, my fond recollection goes back to my youth, when, in response to popular demand from my brother and me, my mother would make "creamed dried beef on toast". Ahhh! Salty as hellfire (I don't know how salty hellfire is, but it's a phrase that rings in the mind), filling, and always to be desired. I always particularly enjoyed it when accompanied by canned cranberry jelly, for the salty-against-piquant contrast, just before I'd wipe the palate clean, so to speak, clearing the flavors away with a drink of cold milk before the next delectable mouthful.

Alas, and more's the pity, my Beautiful Wife puts her delicate foot down, not only against the salt but against the fat in the sauce. It's terrible to be pussywhipped!

Dave Oesterreich