|
Soviet airmen in WWII tended to be stationed far from the front lines, which gave them ample time to seek out supplements to their diet. Apparently fishing with grenades was a very common pastime, and injuries from fishing with grenades were equally common.
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2015 03:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 00:39 |
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:It almost looks like a ration that wouldn't be out of place 70 years ago. It's...actually kinda sad imagining that's all a Ukrainian soldier would get in the field today I've read complaints that they aren't even getting these rations since corrupt quartermasters keep selling them off to line their pockets. Edit: speaking of Soviet mess kits, here's a design proposed by some guy in 1939 that integrates the spoon into the kit as a latch, so that the soldier wouldn't lose it, and also to cut down on the amount of aluminum used. It was rejected since any spoon that still works as a spoon doesn't work as a latch. Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Dec 4, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 14:59
|
|
|
smackfu posted:Makes me wonder if those canned goods have a civilian counterpart in the Ukraine, that we are just unfamiliar with. Most, if not all of it. "Tourist's Breakfast" at least is very popular throughout the former USSR. Edit: beaten. I can comment on the sprats though, Riga sprats on dark rye are divine. That stuff looks... well... maybe if starvation was my only alternative, I'd think about it.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 18:52
|
|
|
Oh, also that pouch of jelly is supposed to be honey. That probably explains why it was gritty, but the fact that you didn't recognize it as honey might be a bad sign.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 19:09
|
|
|
Oh, also your moist towelettes were expired. Good for two years, packet says 2010.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 19:28
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Man, that makes me wonder about the age of that stuff. I ate it earlier this year and my info has said that the green pack is a newer ration that only started appearing in the field around the start of the Civil War. Are they filling it with old components? The green bag says made in 2014 good until 2016, but the instant tea packet says it's only good for one year. I was horrified to see 2-12-96, but upon further inspection that turned out to be a phone number rather than a date.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2015 23:33
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:"Drinking torpedo fuel" has to be somewhere on a list of signs you have a problem. Yeah, problems that there's nothing else to drink. Drinking everything that's even slightly alcoholic has been a thing with enlisted men since probably forever.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2015 14:53
|
|
|
ACES CURE PLANES posted:That actually reminds me of one of my favorite 'soldiers trying to get drunk' stories, about the MiG-25 Foxbat There are endless stories of officers trying to add poo poo to the ethanol to stop the men from drinking it and conscripted chemistry students discovering ways of purifying it again.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2015 18:38
|
|
|
The thing about the military is that "best as possible" is very limited by the "possible". You need something that you can make for cheap, ship far, and have it stick around in warehouses for as many years as possible. That kind of limits your food options.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 19, 2015 21:29
|
|
|
That's a curiously Ukrainian wet wipe for a Russian ration. You'd think that by August of 2014 that would be ideologically incorrect :P Also I'm no chemist, but the Ukrainian wet wipe uses propelyne glycol and the Russian one uses chlorhexidine. The "mode of application" tablets don't actually say what they are and refer to some instructions. Looks like they were cut out of an off-the-shelf tablet pack and the instructions are obviously missing. The second meat dish you had was chicken and rice. The third one is goulash and potatoes. The ration you liked the least is GMO free and free of artificial flavours! Looks like GMOs are pretty great, eh? Also, as mentioned above, these dishes are supposed to be heated before being served. I'm sure it will make them a lot more tolerable. Eggplant caviar is garbage and I had quite enough of it forced on me in kindergarten. As said above, the "cheap butter" was actually a cheese spread. I've had it before, and it has about as much to do with cheese as Cheez Whiz, although the one you have actually has milk products in it. The crystal drink isn't supposed to be apple. From the image on the package, it looks like a mix of various Russian berries. I don't know their names since they don't grow here, but the big one with leaves on the left makes a quite good herbal tea. Curiously, while many items in that pack are good for three years, quite a few are only good for two years. You would think that an army ration would have more uniform expiration dates.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 29, 2016 15:55
|
|
|
Is the date on the bar more of a Best Before than straight up expiry? At least in Canada, the date on the items is when the taste starts to diminish, not when it becomes inedible.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2016 16:43
|
|
|
That's the idea, but from what I can remember I would just eat that stuff with a spoon more often than not. There's also a boiled variant that's even more delicious, but you'd be unlikely to find that in a military ration.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2016 14:29
|
|
|
Fatty posted:Is it a genuine worry that some chocolate fiend will give away your position to the enemy? Army manuals have instructions on how to fart silently, you can't be too careful.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2016 15:08
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:I'm not 100% sure on what this is, but I think it's the same tomato/eggplant/carrot puree stew thing that the Russian ration had. It looks like vomit and tastes strongly of tomatoes and spices with more than a hint of acidity. Yup, it's "eggplant caviar" again.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2016 18:13
|
|
|
I'm convinced that kasha is intentionally bad. I hated every variety as a child.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2017 19:53
|
|
|
Having solid fat melt like that meant that you could pick some mushrooms or something and throw them in the pan with your food while camping. Is that not done in the West?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2017 14:47
|
|
|
Yeah, I just knew which mushrooms were guaranteed to be safe rather than heap every fungus into the basket indiscriminately.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2017 20:18
|
|
|
I thought "best before" meant that the food was no longer as good as originally intended, not that it's necessary harmful, even for commercial products. I imagine stuff like M&Ms would last forever.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2017 14:58
|
|
|
Russian MREs have a mascot.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 24, 2017 16:42
|
|
|
Marxist-Jezzinist posted:When I've bought US mres from UK eBay sellers they've arrived with baltic postage on them so at least over here it's nato allies pocketing them and selling them on. Thanks Americans! A large number of MREs sent to the Ukraine ended up falling off the back of a truck in a similar fashion.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2017 20:10
|
|
|
Russian candy is great. I would demolish anything that came out of the Red October factory, although Rot Front wasn't bad either.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2017 19:00
|
|
|
I heard about a grape flavour field expedient 90% alcoholic beverage. Allegedly, American powdered drink crystals were the only thing that would make captured German ethanol palatable.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2017 20:17
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Would this be replicable with MRE beverage powder and the aforementioned 180 proof alcohol? Only if you stole the alcohol from a German first.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2017 21:11
|
|
|
My grandmother told me about how she made "coffee" from acorns during the war.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 01:09
|
|
|
Nebakenezzer posted:This was a thing in Europe during WW2 as well - I can't imagine it had caffeine so I'm almost not sure why people bothered They bothered because there was nutrients in it. She was in the bad part of Europe to be in during the war. As for beet, I had a fruity tea blend with beets in it recently, and while it didn't taste much like beets, it didn't taste much like tea either.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 03:11
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 00:39 |
|
|
Missing Name posted:Grandpa meet up with the Soviets at the Elbe. He said that they had some blue alcohol that got him really really drunk and he didn't remember anything much after the booze came out. Maybe ethylene glycol.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 29, 2017 22:13
|
|