SSD friend Sal Palma has posted a cool field expedient recipe on his Blog.
Archive for the ‘Field Gourmet’ Category
Field Gourmet – An Army Moves On Its Stomach
Saturday, February 12th, 2011Chow Bombs
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
MREs got you feeling “blah”? Not anymore, at least not if you get the Chow Bomb kit. Not only is the six-sided container an innovative design, they have made the packaging fun as you can see in the bottle for their MRE seasoning.
This thing is a steal. For less than $7 you get a Chow Bomb, MRE Killer Seasoning reload, 2011 MRE Contents Card, and an MRE Field Cookbook.
Visit www.chowbombs.com
How the Russian Horde Eats
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010While Napoleon proclaimed that, “An Army marches on its stomach!”, he was marching on Russia. It seems as though the modern Russian Army has taken this advice to heart, as apparently, they recently won first place in a European Food Exhibition (military category) with their “Individual Diet, Battle†or, as it known with the troops, the IRP-B-1. Picli, at LiveJournal has assembled quite the exploitation report on said Russian ration. Make sure you go read it. The style of writing is awesome, but I still wonder what the hell “conservation gas” is. While I would hazard to guess that most SSD readers are suspicious of Russian military cuisine, I must admit that I am impressed that the manufacturers of the various ration components were proud enough of their products to put their names on the labels. Besides, who wouldn’t want a rat pack with a built in handle?
How many guys are in a Russian Horde anyway?
Field Gourmet: Dutch Rations
Monday, October 25th, 2010An intrepid Dutch reader sent us this report on their issue ration packs.
It consists of one of the boxes shown in the photos plus two meals in a can or sachet which can be eaten both hot or cold. These main meals are based on standard Dutch meals like cooked potatoes, veggies and some meat to lasagna, stews and special meals like halal-prepared.
The contents inside the box have varied over the years. Studies showed that Soldiers are attracted to ‘branded’ items so there was a transition to items like the Mentos bar and chewing gun. A little while back the dark chocolate bar was replaced by a Mars bar. But luckily they changed it back to this delicious chocolate! Our reader also commented that he also likes the recent addition of toothpicks.
Dutch Soldiers are taught to make a snack pack from ration items like a packet of biscuits, the chocolate bar, Mento’s and the dextrose. They keep it in their smocks so they can always grab a quick snack.
What is most telling is that our reader reports that the Dutch troops deployed to “derka-derka-stan” don’t use these rations much since the heat makes them go bad quickly. The tend to rely on US issue MRE’s or would make a meal from what their wives/moms would send.
Field Gourmet – French Rations
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010Here are some photos of French rations from one of our dedicated readers. Keep them coming!
This example is for gourmands of MREs. The RCFIR (Reheatable Field rations) are great if you can “stomach” luxury meals such as tinned Rabbit stew and other French provincial meals. They also have Italian and Moroccan meals in their list of options as well as tinned fish, cocoa powder, potato soup and good crackers.
However, according to our reader, the candy selection is world class and he keeps their hard and fruit paste candies in his survival rations kit ALWAYS. He also related that the dark chocolate is delicious.
He did not get the boxed wine we all hear so much about but is continuing his search for issue Red wine. They also weigh a ton, about 1 pound and while purchasing them in Europe is easy, shipping to the USA is crazy expensive. He closed out his report by relating that the absolute best part is the small pocket Esbit heater in each box with six heat tabs and 12 matches.
Field Gourmet – Do You REALLY Love Ramen?
Thursday, September 30th, 2010Several of the military rations we have been receiving info on (and keep the pics and info coming)include Ramen. Additionally, many of our readers either supplement issue rations with Ramen, are destitute college students who can’t afford anything else, or just happen to like the taste. No matter which category you fit into, it’s nice to spice those noodles up once in awhile.
One of our favorite blogs, Gizmodo, recently spoke withToshio Yamamoto, who writes, get this…a ramen review blog i-ramen.net. It’s a very interesting article and in it he suggests several enhancements to your standard Cup O’ Noodles. Funny thing is, if we had those other things we’d eat them and leave the Ramen in the cupboard.
New Zealand Operational Ration Pack
Monday, September 20th, 2010This is a review of the latest New Zealand ration pack sent in by one of our readers who asked to remain anonymous due to operational considerations. Thank you for your service and your review!
This is the latest development as the ration has had several changes in the past few years. A number of the components are made by the same company as the Australian CR1M – retort meals are exported from NZ to Australia, although special meal flavours are made for the Aussies. NZ retort pouches tend to be spicy (curry, jumbalaya, etc), whereas the Aussie ones are plain (beans and sausages, spaghetti and sausages etc). The NZ ration has 4 menus (see attached info sheet) and is designed to feed 1 person for 24 hours. There are no vegetarian/kosher/halal versions. I am a serving soldier and I have to say the thing I like is that you can actually write to the people that make the ration and they write back and take the feedback on board! As an example previous versions had one menu with glucose sweets and raisins, whereas none of the other menus had an equivalent. Now this has been changed so all menus have them.
The recaldent gum (made in Japan) is a new addition to protect soldiers’ teeth if they can’t brush them. The fruit bar is also quite innovative – it is a dehydrated product made from pure fruit which is edible without rehydration, and the serving is equivalent to eating 5 apples. I really like them.
The towelettes are not like the ones in the MRE – the NZ ones are simply paper soaked in alcohol, meaning they get used for many purposes – including cleaning canteen cups and lighting hexamine tablets! The matches are waterproof/windproof.
As far as a review goes the meals are quite good – they’re made by a civilian company that puts their commercial product in a mil-spec retort pouch. Chilli beef is my favourite, chicken jumbalaya 2nd. The satay isn’t good if you don’t like satay – it’s very much like peanut butter. Usually I dump the sugar and drinks – the soup is ALWAYS vegetable and is quite awful, and the chocolate drink tastes metallic and isn’t good if you have it at the recommended concentration. A canteen cup needs about 6 packets! The sports drinks are very good. The cabin bread is quite hard, but at least it doesn’t break. Some people like the canned cheese but I don’t. The muesli is good with a fair amount of condensed milk, even though the packet has milk powder in it. The onion flakes aren’t that good. The muesli bars have recently changed and are now a bit gluey. The biscuits are good, especially choc chip.
The Brit Rat Pack
Thursday, September 16th, 2010Answering our call for photos of military ration packs, we received this happy snap of a British issue Menu #1 made up of Steak & Veggies for the main meal, freeze dried porridge for breakfast, and Mexican tuna pasta for lunch. We would say that the more outrageous the name of a ration component the more likely it will suck. “Mexican”, “tuna”, and “pasta” just don’t go together.
