British Foods Bovril
Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick and salty meat extract paste similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar which has changed over the decades.
This is the one I found buried under my collapsed chalk wall. This particular size (2 oz) and shape was produced between 1890 and 1918.
Johnston was a butcher in Edinburgh who hated wasting the beef trimmings after selling the cuts that housewives wanted. So he boiled them down until they became a highly concentrated thick glaze that had a very long shelf life. It could be added to soups or gravies, diluted with not water to make “beef tea”.
He emigrated to Canada in 1871. By 1874, the French Army gave him a contract to supply the army with preserved beef products, Britain not having enough beef to supply the French demand in the Franco-Prussian War. While there, he developed Johnston’s Fluid Beef (brand Bovril). This was somewhat different from conventional meat glaze in that the gelatin, present in all meat glaze and making it solid at room temperature, was hydrolysed with alkali to make the mixture semi-liquid, and thereby easier to package, measure and use. For his services, he was awarded the Order of the French Red Cross.
He returned to Scotland, marketed the Bovril and made a fortune out of it. During WW1 the frontline troops were supplied with jars with which they could make “bully tea”.
It was also very popular during WW2 rationing, when meat was very scarce; it could be added to vegetable stews and give the flavour of beef.
I can’t say it’s a favourite of mine, but I do know that I’d rather have it than marmite or vegemite!
I can see John Watson having acquired a taste for it while serving in the army.
i don't think i have ever had bovril. i do like adding marmite to soups, and when i cook grains like rice or barley. it sounds a bit like bouillon, but (like marmite) in goop form rather than powder.