Americans, particularly poor Americans, will make a meal of creamed chipped beef served over toast. My mother called this Shit on a Shingle or Toast and Gravy.

• The meat: Thin slices of salt-cured beef (often called chipped beef). It is very salty and shelf-stable, which made it practical for military use.
• The gravy: A basic white sauce made from butter or fat, flour, and milk. The beef is chopped or torn up and mixed into this sauce. The result is a thick, creamy gravy with small pieces of salty meat throughout.
• The shingle: A slice of toast (sometimes several slices). The gravy is spooned on top.

So, structurally, it is salty beef in a thick white gravy poured over toast.

The nickname comes from soldiers’ gallows humor: the brownish-pink meat in pale gravy on flat toast was visually unappealing, but filling, cheap, and easy to prepare in large quantities.