In the kitchen of Hotel Hinteregger in Matrei, on the stove, there stands a pot which holds the past. Day after day. For more than 50 years. Once it was in the service of the U.S. Army. Anselm was the name of a Matrei local who made a living trading goods of all kinds and stored his stock in the old wagon building. But not all of it was "glump" and "graffl" - words still used today to describe scrap and jumble. In the pile there was also the cooking pot that Anselm had bought from the American occupation forces after the war. Good cookware was scarce, enamel pots constituted the main kitchen equipment. Thus the pot was purchased for the sum of fifty shillings for the kitchen of Hotel Hinteregger, a horrendously high sum in those days.

Since that point U.S. E.A.CO. 1945 and meat soup have been closely connected. It is even used for the traditional funeral feast - the "Eingemachte”. In preparing this, one and a half days are spent in the kitchen. This particular pot of course shares space on the stove with others. But the scale remains: one full U.S. E.A.CO. 1945 pot yields approximately 100 servings.