|
This thread Owns As Hell and thank you to - I think - chitoryu12? for linking it in the milhist thread. On my wish list is "Tea, rum, and fags", about sustaining the British army in WWI (http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Rum-Fags-Sustaining-1914-1918/dp/075245000X). I haven't read it yet but it was highly recommended. My dad is a retired US Navy Supply Corps Captain, so the often overlooked, if not thankless and reviled art of delivering decent food to busy men in far-away locations is kind of fascinating to me. I was on submarines, so the details of packaged rations like MREs kind of passed me by. I remember getting pissed off when the Silver Dolphin Bistro transitioned from handmade food to frozen tray stuff  We had some decent stuff on the boat, but like every other job, the cooks' efforts varied with morale.
hogmartin fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Dec 20, 2015 |
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 00:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:45 |
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Do you still have that recipe card for that spinach cheese thing you posted there? I do: http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/recipes/section_q/Q06000.pdf I tried to make it in normal human quantities for my sister and her fiancé over Thanksgiving and it came out pretty well but I used frozen vs. canned spinach. If you try it, definitely add salt if you don't used canned spinach. I used butter crackers but no additional butter and the crust came out fine. It's basically just a butter cracker crumb, cheese, and bacon crust over spinach. I have no idea why I like it so much or why I've never seen it outside the Navy.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 00:45
|
|
|
nm
hogmartin fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 20, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 01:05
|
|
|
Honestly for that one, it's the first Google hit for 'club spinach'. Back in the 1980s my dad gave his stack of recipe cards to a friend who was a church pastor; there's probably a crazy-easy index to find them all but I don't know it. The recipe cards are common through the DOD, so they're probably relevant to the thread as universal US military recipes (at least outside of conditions where you'd get C-rations or MREs) The best I can recommend is to use the index at http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/recipes/index/full_index.pdf and search Google for the recipe name and corresponding code or whatever. Searching for e.g. "noodles jefferson E 012 00" actually does pick up the relevant recipe card. hogmartin fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Dec 20, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 02:27
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:And not every country treats its soldiers well. I had friends who did their service in the South Korean army and it's the worst. Forty guys in one barracks room sleeping on unheated bare concrete, the food is practically nonexistent and rarely anything more than a too-small portion of white rice and some seaweed floating in water as "soup". It's survivable so that's good enough for the ROK. That's kind of surprising since the ROK is a pretty prosperous country that seems to understand the deterrent value of its military. Did it seem to be a systemic disregard, or more of an old NCO 'gently caress those conscripts, it was good enough for me when I was a private' kind of thing?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2015 03:23
|
|
|
Just finished the intro chapter of "Tea, Rum, and Fags: Sustaining Tommy 1914-18" and it's pretty good so far. It seems rather short and expensive ($16US) for a Kindle title, and it has a bibliography but no in-line footnotes or citations for those who care about that. It's got delectable chapter titles like "Bully Beef and Hard Biscuits", "Cookers", "Rations", "Food and Drink During the Big Offensives", "Canteens" and so on. http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B006ZNECWI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 fake edit: loving hell, physical copies are like $5. I should have just gotten that and waited instead of the Kindle copy :-/ another fake edit: also loving hell; it looks like half the text is available as a preview on Google Books :-/ https://books.google.com/books?id=7lE7AwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA8&ots=lMJWAd3YC7&dq=tea%20rum%20and%20fags%20chapters&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false I DON'T KNOW HOW TO BOOK
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2015 00:28
|
|
|
I think the US has pretty much retired canteens in favor of hydration packs, for better or worse. I think the MRE and FSR beverage packets are now measured for a camelbak, for instance. I don't know if canteens means 'water flasks' or 'messing facilities' in the context of the book yet but I guess I'll find out. The NAAFI wasn't established until 1921 so a tea and snack shack behind the lines might well be called a canteen at this point.
hogmartin fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Dec 22, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2015 03:09
|
|
|
I could've sworn I read something years ago about how one of the innovations of the FSR was that its beverage powders were measured for camelbaks. Makes sense that canteens would still be issued though. Yeah, so I skipped ahead and it's about tea stands and soup kitchens. It sounds like they were entirely run by relief societies, I don't get the impression that there was any official organization like the modern NAAFI or USO or whatever. Most of the mention is of YMCA kitchens and some religious relief societies and the biggest distinction seems to be whether they're 'wet' or 'dry' canteens. There is a lot of mention of EF (Expeditionary Force?) canteens but it seems like that's just a stand-in for 'any canteen that served the BEF soldiers' rather than anything official. Lord Kitchener actually hated the idea because 'war is not a picnic' and while there was a Field Forces Canteen behind Ypres late in 1914 the ubiquitous relief ones didn't start setting up until 1915.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2015 13:27
|
|
|
It certainly clashes with the impression of him as a "soldier's general" I get from everywhere else.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2015 16:40
|
|
|
Tasteful Dickpic posted:He was a gentleman. He WAS a gentleman he was sir, back in the Sudan he was. Why I remember when we was fighting the fuzzy-wuzzies sir back in the Sudan he was the perfect gentleman sir. I remember one time... 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2015 21:15
|
|
|
Tea, Rum, and Fags talks about 'Tommy cookers' which sound a lot like Esbit stoves; little aluminum frames to hold a cup over a solid fuel. There are claims of roughly a pint of water taking two hours to boil which sounds completely mad. It also mentions people (mostly officers) buying their own Primus or Baby Primus pressurized stoves. No mention of the Soyer though.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2015 16:21
|
|
|
Kiwi Dude's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user?KiwiDudeMRE are awesome and The Boss is adorable as hell. Anybody got a newish ration to break the WWI streak going?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
That US Army/JSDF cookoff is cool as hell. I think the guy at 0:35 has Global knives which makes me a little jealous.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2015 18:48
|
|
|
What What on earth is this even   I can appreciate and understand the little helpful gadgets people use to make soldiers' lives easier, often by including them in ration kits, but that is a cardboard postcard made from an MRE fruit carton. In what world can someone in the field actually post a card, i.e. send it out to the world through official mail, but not acquire any writing material or paper besides an MRE carton? a. I feel like a complete dickhole now for goofing on this MRE carton postcard because I know some sweet old grandmother somewhere in a hair net is stamping them out in a plant in Topeka or something, hoping that she's giving someone's grandsons something to write home on. b. A lot of people are going to get correspondence from me soon on paperboard box sides and they'd better be grateful for them.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2015 00:16
|
|
|
So, uh, how is Russian shelf-stable military butter?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 30, 2015 14:42
|
|
|
It isn't solid like pepper jack and it isn't runny like cheese dip. It's basically the same viscosity as peanut butter. Tastes pretty good too, for something that you can keep in a packet in your basement for a year or two and then eat right there. I will sometimes raid my "it's February and the ice storm knocked out the power" stash for a packet or two and eat it on tortillas or matzo or whatever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDG5u6oHmXQ
|
|
#
¿
Jan 1, 2016 14:32
|
|
|
Does anyone have any experience with Indian rations? There's some wikipedia info and most Indian food I have seems like it would lend itself pretty well to retort packing but I just noticed I don't recall ever seeing one in a 'watch me try out this ration' video.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 4, 2016 18:18
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Just wait until I show you what MY Russian ration included. It's got a repeat of one of the Ukrainian cans, plus the world's most terrifying bacon cube. Russian rations including Ukrainian items is a little surreal these days. I'm doing the duolingo.com Russian language course and one of the phrases is 'Вот Украина, а вот Россия.' I doubt it was intended that way but I can't read it without hearing 'HERE'S Ukraine and HERE'S Russia and that's where they really need to stay'.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2016 15:10
|
|
|
I had a lifeboat ration pretty much like that once except it tasted exactly like a lemon vanilla wafer. https://survivorind.com/2400.html
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2016 18:30
|
|
|
mng posted:He's really thorough and optimistic though, which is great. For sure, I don't think I've ever seen him turn something down because it looked too nasty. He's always ready to try it and seems to have at least something nice to say about anything he samples. His kid ("the Boss") is also adorable as hell and seems to have inherited his readiness to try weird army food and like it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2016 13:16
|
|
|
I'm reading through "The Astronaut's Cookbook" from Charles Bourland (retired NASA space foods director) and Gregory Vogt (astronaut trainer). It's written to, I'd say, maybe a young adult/middle school level, but it's pretty interesting and doesn't really dumb itself down for the audience. It covers historical and contemporary space food programs (including Soviet/Roscosmos). Lots of interesting sidebars and anecdotes, and it's from 2009 so it's written at a time when the ISS and Shuttle were both active and mature projects concurrently. There are recipes at the end of each chapter - some are for recreating actual mission foods in a home kitchen and others are various astronauts' favorite terrestrial recipes. -Introduction/Space Food Types/Etc. -Breakfast Foods. -Snacks and Appetizers. -Soups and Salads. -Bread, Tortillas, and Sandwiches. -Main Dishes. -Vegetables. -Desserts. -Beverages. -Future Space Foods (to Mars, etc.) APPENDIX: -A History of American Space Foods. -ISS Expedition 5 Sample Crew Menu. -Internet Sources on Space Food and Nutrition. It's available on Amazon (plastic comb binding available for $7 but you'll want the $730 paperback of course). If you have access to a University library that subscribes to SpringerLINK ebooks, you can download the no-DRM PDF.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2016 00:34
|
|
|
No protein, fat, or carbs. That would be a rough 'survival'.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2016 13:58
|
|
|
If you've become sick or been injured during a nuclear exchange, I don't know how much some sugar, salt, and vitamins is going to do for your recovery. Maybe if you're lucky enough to have gotten radiation poisoning you won't be hungry at least.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2016 15:29
|
|
|
Artificer posted:Would modern survival food be much better? That solid chunk of apple cinnamon whatever posted a while back didnt look like it covered the food pyramid. It's not as nutritionally complete as actual food but compared to the cold war sugar/salt/vitamin pack it does provide some protein, fat, and carbs.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2016 16:09
|
|
|
Phanatic posted:Pretty sure dextrose is a carb. Er, my mistake, no complex carbs then.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2016 17:47
|
|
|
bulletsponge13 posted:Chow hall food was mostly decent when I was in, and I wish I could find the recipe for the terrible 'yakisoba' they served in the Ft. Benning chow halls. http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/recipes/section_l/L06200.pdf I never understood how they got away with calling that poo poo yakisoba, it's like yakisoba as described by an alien who doesn't eat human food. Might as well put ketchup and a cheese slice on toast and call it pizza, yep, checks all the boxes, it's pizza. Any of the recipes you would have had in the mess hall will have a card like that one, just have to find them. And then invite over 99 friends or else adjust the proportions. hogmartin fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Mar 8, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2016 10:42
|
|
|
rchandra posted:Is that really enough spice for 100 servings? I'd have expected either no spices, or more. It does seem a bit light for that quantity and I don't see where the second salt gets used either. Huh. There would be a good selection of condiments on the table though, the recipes would be mild enough for anyone and if you need more spice you add it yourself. The usual selection would be salt, pepper, ketchup, A-1 steak sauce, Heinz 57 sauce, Tabasco (and sometimes another hot sauce as well), and soy sauce. Some meals would have another condiment, like vinegar with french fries or grated cheese with pasta. Pizza would be served with crushed red pepper but also ranch dressing as a dipping sauce and I still throw up a little in the back of my throat thinking of people loading up pizza with that nasty poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2016 11:08
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm not sure what the deal is, there used to be a DoD recipe card site that worked but I can't get the links to work either. The index is fine, but none of the individual recipes links work. I just Google searched for 'Army yakisoba recipe card'. I guess you can use the index to find recipes to search for.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2016 15:17
|
|
|
monster on a stick posted:Creamed chipped beef, aka SOS, is good stuff when prepared properly. Needs more pepper though. Pork adobo was another good one (http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/recipes/section_l/l09900.pdf) though one of our chiefs had an irrational hatred of it. I'm more curious about mess hall recipes than packaged rations now, how and when did a Filipino pork dish get institutionalized into the US armed forces dining repertoire? Or half-assed spaghetti yakisoba? There was a US military presence in the Philippines and there still is one in Japan, so it's not totally out of nowhere that those foods might end up being adopted, but at some point someone had to say "yep, we're gonna add pork adobo to the recipe list" and put together a card for making it. SOS makes sense; it's a classic diner breakfast, but Filipino cuisine isn't really familiar to most Americans. e: The recipe cards are cool but I wonder how much is lost when you don't know the little tricks. The good cooks would put chicken broth in the mashed potatoes or grape jelly in the Swedish meatballs or a cup of coffee in the SOS. It wasn't enough to make them taste like chicken or jelly or coffee, just some subtle added flavor that made things a lot nicer. You could definitely tell who was working the galley even though they were all technically working off the same cards. hogmartin fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 9, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2016 11:18
|
|
|
Suspect Bucket posted:a good percentage of people and not familiar enough with adobo to know what it's really supposed to taste like, so "not terrible" is nice to get. Woo, you're not kidding. Boat pork adobo was a tasty and welcome institutional food compared to others, but nothing like the real thing. Some of the Filipino sailors' wives would bring like a crate of food down when their husbands were on duty and if you were in the same duty section you absolutely did not go hungry for lack of adobo or pancit or lumpia. Suspect Bucket posted:The bad yakisoba is an offshoot of a similarly bad cafeteria dish. I can't remember what it was called, but it was basically a way to use up leftover spaghetti. American Chop Chop, I remember it being called. Just tasted like ground beef, salt, and sad. Chop suey, maybe?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2016 15:32
|
|
|
Siivola posted:American Chop Suey sounds like the regular Nordic macaroni casserole. A little bit, but it's usually fried rather than baked and doesn't include any dairy. Suspect Bucket posted:Real Chop Suey is an important footnote in chineese-american history. Yep, it's definitely a key piece of how early Chinese immigrants interacted with the American public. Not quite on-topic for a military food thread, but "The Search for General Tso" (it's on Netflix) is a pretty good documentary on the history of the Chinese food tradition in America.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2016 12:40
|
|
|
Whoa, apparently I have no idea what I'm talking about. That's definitely more like Siivola's casserole. Where I'm from, chop suey always meant diced celery and bean sprouts and carrot and pepper in a really mild soy sauce with corn starch, that's something else entirely. What region are you from? e: thread-relevant content http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/recipes/section_l/L08000.pdf hogmartin fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Mar 11, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2016 14:45
|
|
|
Aquila posted:After finding this thread I was inspired to actually try one of the MRE's I bought to keep in my truck in case of emergency. A good post. Commercial-packed MREs could almost be their own thread, there are so many variations between the different vendors who assemble them. And they're more likely to be bought, stored, and consumed by the average internet nerd than the fascinating and exotic foreign ones, as neat as they are to eat vicariously. I'm sure there's a readiness/survival thread in TFR or something that has already covered this though. I got a pack of 12 with heaters from Emergency Essentials maybe 3 years ago, then took them all apart (they come in zip-top bags) and reassembled them so the applesauce went with the turkey instead of with the teriyaki beef or whatever. I only ever opened one so far when I moved into a new house in the gap between the apartment lease expiring and the water/electricity being turned back on and I don't remember which one it was, but it was OK. Emergency Essentials is pretty good about selling the components a-la-carte too, so you can buy a bunch of the ones you like. I didn't end up using the heater because it was last June and no electricity means no A/C, but it was thick plastic with the beloved ROCK OR SOMETHING and an NSN so it was probably one of God's Own. I should probably start rotating them out myself; the assumption is that they'll last forever but they really do start to get ugly after a while, even if they're technically safe. I could do posts on them as I rotate them but you've already seen Kiwi Dude do pretty much every one and he's more charming (and The Boss much more adorable) than I am. Plus I should stop ratfucking them for the tasty parts and just order a dozen jalapeno cheese and mixed fruit. http://beprepared.com/mre-emergency-backup-meal-ebm-case-of-12.html
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2016 22:59
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:I support you posting reviews just because. Freshness more than cost. Military MREs on the civilian market are made for the military and are somehow surplussed. That eats into a bit of their best-by date. Commercial-packed MREs use the same individual entrees, sides, and snacks from the same facilities, but they go right into the bag instead of sitting in a warehouse until the military decides they don't want them anymore.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2016 01:43
|
|
|
I don't remember if it's been posted in this thread before, but the McIlhenny Company printed a C-ration cookbook during the Vietnam War that also assumed that people would acquire local foods (and mix them with C-rations and Tabasco): http://www.mcb53.com/pagevietnam/pdfvietnam/OR%20HOW%20TO%20EAT%20WELL%20IN%20A%20FOXHOLE.pdf
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 19:44
|
|
|
kafziel posted:What I mean is, like, you've got one mre heater in its sleeve, and you have an entree, and you have a side thing that's usually rice, and both of those need to be heated! So how do you do that if you can only fit one of them into the pouch? The instructions on the pack and that I can find online say nothing about how to heat up the rice side. I think Kiwi Dude mentioned that the newer FRH bags are bigger than the older ones, but I don't remember which video that was, or if he even said it. You could also use the MRE bag if you need to, no? It's big enough to hold all the other stuff and it's just aluminized plastic, right? I've never actually done this, so I could be wrong. I had a civilian MRE yesterday as part of my half-assed effort to rotate the stock. It was a clear ziploc-packed version from Emergency Essentials (http://beprepared.com/mre-emergency-backup-meal-ebm-case-of-12.html), chicken pesto pasta. It came with an accessory pack with a butterscotch hard candy, spork, napkin, salt and pepper packets, and two towelette packets. The deal with civilian "prepper" MRE packs is that their components come straight from the same vendors who make the military stuff, just a bit fresher since they don't wander around the military supply system until they get sold to you. I ate it out of the pouches without heating. It probably would have benefited from being heated, but I'd rather save the FRHs if I don't need them and the saucepan was too small to hold the entree packet and I'm lazy. The chicken pesto pasta was entirely edible but wholly unremarkable. It had more chicken than pasta, and the pasta was not exactly al dente. The sauce was also completely unnoticeable. If I had it at a low-budget conference buffet and was told it was tuna noodle salad, I wouldn't have questioned it a bit. It's understandable, though, basil is a cast-iron bitch to serve any way but fresh. Dry is tasteless, freeze-dried is little better, and the prepared tubes of pesto toothpaste stuff are only marginally better. It would have been better if I'd hit it with some Tabasco and abandoned all pretense of pestotude. The wheat snack bread was pretty good, a combination of sweet and bready, soft but not crumbly. I had it with the peanut butter and the blackberry jam, and it was pretty much what you'd expect peanut butter and blackberry jam to be on a bed of pop-tart sized bread. The peanut butter even had a few fragments of nuts in it. Pound cake was pretty much the same as the wheat snack bread, just a little softer and sweeter. It was perfectly fine, soft but not crumbly, and taste-wise, you could probably put $0.85 in a vending machine in an airport or train station and get a snackycake that would be the same thing. Not bad, not great, just a little snack that does its job. I've set aside the mixed fruit in heavy syrup just because I've had it before and it's kind of unremarkable. Go grab a can of DelMonte or Kroger or Safeway fruit cocktail; it's the same thing.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2016 18:19
|
|
|
Just popped another (beef taco filling and refried beans) and used the FRH. It wasn't as vigorous as some that Ive seen, but it did a good enough job that after 2 minutes both pouches were too hot to hold except by the edges.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
Anybody know where I can get something like a real Hawaiian Diamond Bakery saloon pilot cracker for a decent price on the mainland? The shipping rates are eye-watering for a goddamn cracker. If you haven't encountered them, they're like a sturdy saltine cracker the size of a CD - some ration reviews have probably shown similar hardtack products. The closest approximations are Passover matzot and Wasa scandibreads, but neither is quite the same.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2016 23:39
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Wouldn't it make more sense to put the chicken on top of the instant noodles? I'm more amazed that the instant noodles made it in at all. Are they the same as an ordinary pack of dry Nissin or Maruchan or whatever? I can't imagine them making it through an ordinary day without being pulverized into unsatisfying little bits.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 15:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:45 |
|
|
Samizdata posted:There is no comparison between Maruchan and Nissin. Nissin is lowest possible effort all the way. One day you'll run into Zombie Momofuku Ando and a little girl in a chicken costume in a dark alley and they'll change your mind  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp0ml75idjI hogmartin fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jul 8, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2016 20:06
|
|