From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
mess tin (plural mess tins)
- A portable container for cooking or serving food, originally for military use, and generally of a rounded rectangular form.
2017, Primo Levi, Moments of Reprieve: Essays, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 126:[…] it was his army mess tin, he had carried it with him in all his travels, he certainly was attached to it. Alberto didn't stop roaming about the Camp until he identified the thief, who was much stronger than we were and brazenly carried around the beautiful and rare Italian mess tin. My friend hit on a plan: to offer Elias three bread rations, in installments, provided he would agree to recover the mess tin, by fair means or foul, from the hands of the thief, who was a Pole like himself.
