You may believe that SPAM is the single most bizarre wartime-related meat derivative that humanity has ever spawned. If so, you are mistaken. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce you to Bovril, SPAM’s crazy cat-lady grandmother:
Bovril
Around 1870, Napoleon III, emperor of France, was fighting a war with Prussia, and he had issues with his supply line. Apparently, his soldiers were in need of the sort of sustenance that can only come from dead animal flesh, but dead animal flesh was hard to come by. He gave a Scot named John Lawson Johnston the task of supplying his army with beef. Finding it hard to meet the demand generated by Mr. Napoleon’s armies, Mr. Johnston decided that liquefying his meat was the only option. Johnston’s Fluid Beef proved to be an instant success, or at least the only option, and so something majestically bizarre was introduced to the world.
In 1880, Mr. Johnston moved back to the UK (known at the time as merry olde Englande), where he elected to change the name of his product to Bovril. Why Bovril? Well, the “Bo” part is relatively innocuous; those bovines–or bos, in the nominative case–are nominatively the main ingredient. As for the “vril?” Ahhh, now there’s the rub! From the Wikipedia article:
The -vril comes from Bulwer-Lytton’s once-popular 1870 “lost race” novel, The Coming Race (also reprinted as Vril: The Power of the Coming Race), in which a subterranean humanoid race have mental control over, and devastating powers from, an energy fluid named “Vril.”
No. I am not kidding you. This liquid meat-paste originally developed for the armies of Napoleon III was named after a novel’s magical “energy fluid” utilized by a fictional, subterranean species of once-humans who predate Atlantis and will someday emerge from their cavernous empire (anyone else thinking Zork, here? I can’t write the word “cavernous” without thinking Zork) to take over the surface.
It gets better. Bovril has progressed far beyond its original conception and exists today as a full line of products ranging from items such as “beef tea” to only slightly less mysterious “Bovril cubes” that are presumably similar to bouillon.
Vril has also had a long and sordid career far beyond what was likely envisioned by Mr. Bulwer-Lytton: crackpots the world over are convinced that Nazis were actually attempting to utilize vril to create any number of powerful devices. In other words, Bovril is not just a liquid SPAM, it is also the source of Nazi flying saucer power and perhaps the single most interesting meat-based product ever.
Awesome.
In 2004, Bovril took another unexpected turn: though the name of the product itself literaly means “magical life-giving cow meat,” the company went vegetarian for two years. Brovil has once again returned to its meaty roots, although you can still purchase chicken “magical life-giving cow meat” today, if that’s your preference.
“Alas my poor Brother”
(image links to source)
Lest you question the insanity of Bovril, I leave you with this last quote, also from the Wikipedia article:
Bovril holds the unusual position of having been advertised with Papal approval. An advertising campaign of the early 20th Century in Britain depicted the Pope seated on his throne, bearing a mug of Bovril. The campaign slogan ran: “The Two Infallible Powers - The Pope & Bovril”.