WWII soldiers already ate old rations?

[Synthpeter]

Watching TV last night, I stumbled across a British documentary called "Air Aces" episode 1.
This particular episode was about Canadian pilot George Beurling serving with the RAF and volunteered to take a married man's place to be stationed at Malta to get up there and fly.
He was too undisciplined for the RAF but was apparently so good at leading his fire at distant targets that the gun cams didn't catch the kill, so his superiors thought he was lying about why he broke formation, and he got grounded in England, so he got his break with the Malta assignment.

Interesting documentary for sure, but this sentence caught my attention:
"We had corned beef, canned in 1919 in South America. I could taste corned beef for years after."
Jump to 34:14 if the link fails to seek properly.


That corned beef was over 20 years old I wonder how well they had held up.
Was it common that already back then old rations were being eaten?
I guess when resources are scarce, beggars can't be choosers, but how good were the preservation techniques in 1919?

[housil]

That corned beef was over 20 years old I wonder how well they had held up.
Was it common that already back then old rations were being eaten?
I guess when resources are scarce, beggars can't be choosers, but how good were the preservation techniques in 1919?

I remember watching a show about meet production in the US at this time. They had to send huge amounts of cattle halfs to the troops at the WW1 front in France/Belgium from USA and butcher them there. That´s why they figure out how to butcher them first and then sending them.
http://online.wsj.com/ww1/canned-food
Back in these days, to can food wasn´t this advanced as we are today so the canned food got pretty fast a metallic taste and the lead from the solderings went into the food...

[SD_Jeff]

I was once friends with a USN vet who was in just after WWII, (1950's I think) and he told me stories of eating green eggs on Midway Island that were older than he was.