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Internet Wizard posted:Here's a tumblr of pictures of American military chow hall food. Xiahou Dun posted:And, for the record, I figure it's all but impossible to get but... North Korea? Eh? Steve Yun posted:Reading around, it doesn't seem that NK even has official packaged rations. When young men (and some women) are conscripted, their family pulls every possible string to try to get them into a good unit, "good" meaning one that eats. No one wants to be a commando; those units used to be prestigious but now show their patriotism mainly by starving. My understanding is that the North Korean armed forces have to scrounge for food, sometimes stealing from civilians, as a matter of course. (During the famine, military units were getting in armed confrontations with the police in order to seize food.) They have no real ability to project power beyond their borders (not with infantry or mechanized units anyway) so packaged rations would be a waste of resources even if they could afford them.
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Jun 3, 2016 17:31
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Nebakenezzer posted:Did you know that North Korea actually operates a chain of restaurants throughout SE Asia using North Korean labor? https://news.vice.com/article/cash-for-kim-how-north-koreans-are-working-themselves-to-death-in-europe
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Jun 3, 2016 18:35
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deadly_pudding posted:This is maybe the wrong thread for this, but how serious actually is the North Korean army? I can't help but think of like skeleton-men in oversized uniforms, armed with weapons that are held together by scotch tape and rubber bands. Are they actually a legit threat? People in the DPRK are no longer as ignorant as they're imagined to be by people cracking jokes about Best Korea and God-Emperor Kim. There's a lot of black market trade with China, and many North Koreans have seen Chinese and South Korean movies and TV programs. But from what I can tell from interviews with defectors, one area where they're still largely ignorant of the outside world is relative military strength. I don't think they have any idea how pointless their conventional missile tests are, nor how badly their soldiers, weapons, and armored divisions are outnumbered by NATO forces. In theory, if the American imperialist wolves invaded the glorious People's Republic, their armed forces are trained to melt into the shadows and wage a brutal guerilla war, just like Iron Willed Brilliant Commander Kim Il Sung!* In practice, the average North Korean soldier is scrawny, hungry, poorly-trained, armed with dilapidated equipment, and spends most of his time doing manual labour if he's doing anything at all. North Korea's also nowhere near the size of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the event of an invasion they'd likely be robbing the civilians of food, not be sheltered and supported by them.
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Jun 3, 2016 19:01
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Yep. The absolute worst case scenario for us is that they would successfully attack the United States with a nuclear device. That's incredibly unlikely. What's more likely is that they would do a lot of damage to SK with artillery fire, especially since the population is so concentrated in Seoul and evacuation would be a nightmare to implement. There's also the danger that they would use stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, or that in the event of regime collapse, some faction would get ahold of them and use them within or without North Korea.Goodpancakes posted:Seriously with our bloated military budget they can't afford jalapeņo cheese in every mre?
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Jun 3, 2016 19:36
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Fenrir posted:I doubt they could successfully get a nuke all the way to America, but they could probably hit Seoul and maybe even Tokyo with one, which would be the biggest disaster in human history. They may already have chemical/biological weapons that can get that far at least. Fortunately, thus far North Korea's nuclear weapons program has only demonstrated the ability to annihilate tiny portions of North Korea and massive portions of North Korea's GDP.
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Jun 4, 2016 00:24
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I honestly wonder where I can get shelf-stable condensed milk tubes for when I forget to bring fresh half-and-half to the office.
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Jun 13, 2016 16:08
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The canned meat paste in some of those rations, disgusting as it is, seems like it would be okay if you fried it with potatoes so there's not congealed fat floating on top of it.
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Jun 29, 2016 19:48
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I don't know why I would even want to make some of those C-Ration combinations, even for the sake of variety after endless uniformity. Like, frying the pecan roll with peanut butter makes sense, but why not just eat the date pudding and then eat the fruit salad? But then, I'm not an American in the mid-60s raised on dishes made by combining meat, vegetables, and a jello mold.
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Jun 30, 2016 19:59
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Wouldn't it make more sense to put the chicken on top of the instant noodles?
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Jul 6, 2016 14:59
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hogmartin posted: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. Ensign Expendable posted:Army manuals have instructions on how to fart silently, you can't be too careful.
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Jul 6, 2016 15:18
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I'm so, so sorry.
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Jul 8, 2016 18:28
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Are any armed forces experimenting with Soylent style products? I know Soylent has serious issues and lack of variety is a morale killer...but OTOH I think I'd rather eat one of the same 5 or 6 flavours of smoothie, provided the taste and texture was decent, than some of the rations I've seen here.
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Aug 21, 2016 19:17
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I should have considered that liquid diets have been a thing for as long as sick people have gotten by on broth. Just thinking how much I'd rather drink Carnation Instant Breakfast than stone-cold Tourist's Breakfast.
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Aug 22, 2016 00:30
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At first glance, I thought the hamburger MRE was jelly and peanut butter squeezed out of packets onto a cracker, which wouldn't be so bad.
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Aug 22, 2016 14:41
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I've enjoyed packaged moon cakes before, but like most packaged Chinese pastry I find that they have a heavy, samey consistency throughout.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:07
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Guys, mooncakes are pretty good, but they're not worth getting fired over.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:25
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What about the egg yolk? I think the ones I had lacked the egg.
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Sep 16, 2016 16:01
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It's a gourmet thing; people pay $60 dollars for small cakes and boxes of chocolate.
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Sep 19, 2016 01:23
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I know I'm continuing a derail here, but...now I'm craving moon cakes. Should I wait until Chinese New Year to look for really good ones?
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Sep 19, 2016 04:40
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My wife was disappointed when she found that whereas she was used to multi-story Korean groceries, our town just has a small Asian supermarket with mostly packaged and dried food. But you can get moon cakes...
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Sep 20, 2016 01:52
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I was wondering what servicemen thought of the declaration that MRE constipation was actually the fault of a) swapping components and b) bodybuilding supplements. Surely the MRE Blockade must counter the Rip It Shits, no?
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Sep 26, 2016 14:35
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As the OP said, the last time anyone got ahold of some North Korean rations (AFAIK) was when the Japanese sunk a spy submarine in 2001 and recovered it in 2003. The rations aboard were Japanese canned goods. Chronic malnutrition is as much a problem among the KPA as it is among the general population. (In fact, many young men are rejected from the required military service because childhood malnutrition left them mentally disabled.) The North Korean diet relies a great deal on corn, with some rice, barley, and millet. Soldiers are often employed in performing manual labour, and are in fact expected to supplement their diet with farming, fishing, and foraging. (I've read anecdotes of soldiers stealing livestock from civilians, and during the 90s famine, armed confrontations over food sometimes erupted between soldiers and police.) The national welfare system is failing all over, so I'm almost certain the KPA doesn't have widespread use of packaged field rations or even a consistent nutrition program like the armed forces of the U.S. or any other functioning state.
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Dec 20, 2016 20:56
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I love paneer, but there are two kinds of spinach: Raw, and Ruined.
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Jan 23, 2017 04:25
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It's okay, I recently stumbled on the "Agriculture in North Korea" article and it didn't mention corn.
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Jan 23, 2017 06:08
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I thought that the PlumpyNut company doesn't sell it commercially because they've taken some heat for not being able to produce the product fast enough to meet demand, but won't license other manufacturers to pick up the slack. Which may be for good reasons, as A Good Horse laid out, but of course it wouldn't look good if you're selling them to weirdo sovcit preppers on the side.
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Jan 23, 2017 15:02
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Did someone say VIKING FOOD? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDyVjHWERQU&t=287s
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Apr 13, 2017 14:44
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I love buckwheat, but I've never had kasha. It seems like something that should be impossible to gently caress up.
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Apr 24, 2017 19:57
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Quite possibly, it's just that military stuff seemed to overflow with congealed processed pork.
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Apr 25, 2017 05:19
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There are tons of geese all over my town, too stupid to use the crosswalk, they just sort of wander into the street. Like college students.
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Jul 28, 2017 14:45
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I've heard penguin is terrible and tastes like really fishy, greasy chicken. Probably no one has done this in decades, though.
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Jul 29, 2017 17:25
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Grand Fromage posted:There's a penguin island episode of a podcast called The Dollop you may be interested in. (White People Disease is when you can't be in society without yelling "whooooo!" at least every five minutes.)
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Jul 31, 2017 03:25
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They'll do anything if you let them do it while balancing on a Bosu Ball. If you need your fence painted, just line a few of 'em up in front of it with a paint can beside each one.
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Jul 31, 2017 20:12
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I can actually eat in a French restaurant for less than that.
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Aug 24, 2017 17:49
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I can translate the rest of one of those sentences: "Half of your food was stolen due to poor hot food security."
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Oct 23, 2017 02:17
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I was about to say, I'd be interested to see someone recreate the various liquors mentioned in Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, but I don't want anyone to go blind or die. Forget about industrial contamination in your MRE; they didn't call it "popskull" for nothing. I always look sideways at anything on a restaurant menu purporting to be "grog." You never know what it's going to be. I remember a legendarily bad Bar Rescue episode where their "grog" was a huge glass with three kinds of rum and what might have been blue curacao, which is just revolting. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Nov 6, 2017 |
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Nov 6, 2017 19:57
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chitoryu12 posted:Also, check out chicory coffee some time. It adds a sort of nutty/dark chocolate flavor when used in moderation.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:28
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After I heard an NPR story about Russian men drinking perfume to get drunk, I thought Russian alcoholism had lost its ability to shock me.
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Nov 7, 2017 03:19
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Not strictly military food, Famine food is rather interesting.
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Nov 7, 2017 21:06
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Number three is why Kool Aid was popular in Vietnam, it covered up the godawful taste of water purification tablets
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Nov 9, 2017 16:51
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There's actually a scene in Punisher: Warzone where he takes a family into his secret hideout, and the only food he has are egg&cheese MREs. God, all the farts in that enclosed space...and how does he stay perfectly quiet when he's on sniper duty?
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Nov 20, 2017 01:36
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