In 2021, Ricky Moore, the chef-owner of Durham’s celebrated Saltbox Seafood Joint, wanted to serve something special on Veterans Day. Drawing inspiration from his own military experience, Moore settled on chipped beef for breakfast.
Chipped beef, which consists of seasoned ground beef in a creamy white sauce, has been in Army cooks’ repertoires for more than a century. It’s Moore’s favorite chow hall meal, even though it’s better known as S.O.S. to service members who don’t care for its appearance, taste, or effect on their digestive systems. Despite its notorious reputation, Moore insists, “When made properly, it’s a great breakfast dish.”
By contrast, Army stew isn’t widely known. But when Moore opened the doors that holiday, he discovered his chosen lunch item was the star attraction. Nostalgic veterans, homesick South Korean immigrants, and curious diners who’d never heard of the dish all wanted a taste of what Moore described on social media as “a type of Korean jjigae, made with ham, sausage, Spam, baked beans, kimchi, instant noodles, and gochujang.”
Going into the military was the furthest thing from Moore’s mind while growing up on military bases near New Bern, North Carolina, where his father was stationed. He dreamed of being an artist, and even earned a college scholarship to pursue an art degree. Yet Moore at 17 didn’t feel ready for college, so he joined the Army instead.
In 1987, Moore began basic training at Fort Jackson, outside of Columbia, South Carolina, and then went on to Fort Benning in Georgia for paratrooper training, also known as “jump school.” The ever-practical Moore decided to make the leap to “cook school” at Fort Jackson in South Carolina for a better shot at getting promoted. His instincts would prove correct.
After cook school, he was assigned to Fort Polk in Louisiana where he worked morning, afternoon, and night shifts. Things sometimes got intense for military cooks, who were grouped into roughly half a dozen teams. “We competed against each other,” Moore said. “You got hazed by getting thrown on the ‘eggs to order’ station. Talk about terror! You had to know the rank [of the person ordering], and make sure you made it perfectly. Once you achieved that, you could do anything.”
Moore excelled, and at age 19, he was promoted to the supervisory rank of sergeant. He spent two of his seven years in the Army at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. It was there that he first saw a stew with a wide range of ingredients: gnocchi, hot dog slices, kimchi, mushrooms, noodles (usually ramen), pork and beans, rice cakes, scallions, and tofu, all simmering in a spicy and sweet gochujang sauce. He watched as the cook finished it by laying a slice of American cheese on top.
“I first thought it was something Hawaiian because it had SPAM in it,” Moore admitted. “A short time later, I was at a luau and asked about it. Some people who served in Korea told me what it was.”
The revelation was a South Korean dish called budae-jjigae, which translates in English to “Army stew” or “Army base stew.” This dish was far different from traditional Army stew, a soupy mix of meat and vegetables that American servicemembers have been eating since the 19th century—and, for decades, at Veterans Day community events. Moore took note of the culinary curiosity but didn’t try making it for troops.
After military service, Moore used the G.I. Bill to enroll at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Soon after graduation, he took a civilian job in a dining facility at Fort Huachuca, Arizona where his wife Norma was stationed. There, a South Korean woman in the kitchen reacquainted him with the same dish he’d seen in Hawaii.
Origin stories vary, but conventional wisdom begins with U.S. troops serving in South Korea in the 1950s during the Korean War. The troops either gave or sold their individualized packages of food, known as “C-rations,” to hungry South Koreans. At that time, C-rations came in eight varieties and could include numerous types of beans, biscuits, candy, fruit cocktail, hamburgers, hash, hot dogs, sausage patties, spaghetti, SPAM, and Vienna sausages.
“South Koreans took those ingredients and created a national dish,” Moore explained.
At Saltbox, Moore adapted the dish to his style of cooking by adding smoked SPAM and country ham for depth and salt.
Moore saw an immediate uptick in business on that first Veterans Day. As anticipated, U.S. Army veterans came in for the chipped beef breakfast, but at lunch, something entirely different happened. South Koreans who had never visited his restaurant showed up to place orders for stew.
“People saw it on social media, and it resonated with the huge Korean community in North Carolina,” Moore recalled.
In addition to immigrants and veterans, new customers included American-born eaters with Korean spouses, and civilians who had spent time in Korea. Most notably for Moore, the group included lots of young people. He thought to himself, “I’m feeding everybody in North Carolina. People want to get that Saltbox [Seafood Joint] ticket punched.”
Every year since, Army stew has remained a beloved Veterans Day special at Moore’s restaurant–proof that wonderful and unexpected things happen when memory is placed on the menu.
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