Pushing the Edge of the Retort Envelope

About that twelve-year-old MRE I live to tell the tale.  By and large it was not only edible – some of it was actually very good.  And some was not so good.  As a point of fact a few things were really, really unpleasant.  My review is as follows: 

First-off this is more than I typically eat at one sitting so I spaced it over a couple of days.  The packet contained the following: an entrée featuring chicken noodle stew with vegetables, applesauce, nut raisin mix, oatmeal cookie, orange-flavored drink mix (vitamin C added), a flameless MRE heater pouch and accessory pack with a spoon, napkin, salt and pepper, non-dairy creamer, sugar, instant coffee and lemon-scented refreshing moist wipe.

Since life is short (especially if you are dining on very old MREs) I started with dessert - apple sauce, nut raisin mix and the oatmeal cookie.  The apple sauce looked good – more red than blonde or brown and with some chunky texture.  Giving it a sniff it smelled of apples with a hint of cinnamon and was not too sweet.



There was reading material about the history and use of applesauce included on the exterior packaging.  Heretofore, I was unaware that apple sauce combats diarrhea.  Who knew?

As for the raisin nut mix – ugh.  From the moment I opened the packet I could tell it had gone rancid.  The peanuts had turned to an off-color.  Not passing the smell test I didn’t even give it a taste and tossed it after finishing the apple sauce. 

After the nut mix I wasn’t holding out much hope for the cookie.  I fully expected the shortening in the manufacture to have gone rancid too.  I’ll be danged – the cookie was excellent.  It sported a sprinkling of sugar crystals over the top, still had its crunch, not a hint of any off-flavors and was good to the last crumb.  Twelve-year-old cookie. 

If I do this again I’m having my cookie together with the applesauce. 

I was expecting the orange-flavored drink to resemble something like the Tang we drank gallons of at scout camp as a kid – only this was worse.  

Giving it a sniff it smelled orangey-enough yet it had a strange, metallic, funkiness about it. 




A cup of cold water didn’t improve matters – I gave it a sip and concluded the metallic, off-flavors were too much for my palate.  Down the drain it went. 

The main course spent the required fifteen minutes in the flameless MRE heater (which gave-off a bad, hydrogen gas smell) but didn’t impact the meal and everything warmed in the enclosed retort pouch. 

Opening the pouch and dumping the contents of the chicken noodle stew with vegetables into a mess kit my first impression was that of baby food – toddler to be exact.  Truthfully the nose appeal was far better than the eye appeal but I gave the congealed toddler food a taste.  Not at all bad – although it took a wee bit of salt and a generous dash from the pepper packet to liven it-up.
 

There were nice chunks of chicken; the noodles were just about indiscernible and the only ‘vegetables’ I could find were soggy carrot slices. 

dehydrated carrots were included on the list of ingredients

 
The entrée made for a terrific hot lunch and no indigestion followed. 

Lastly, I added the instant coffee to a cup of boiling water and got mediocre instant coffee in return. 

click on any image for a closer look



I didn’t even consider the non-dairy creamer considering the shelf-life.  The towelette was moist, lemony and refreshing.  On balance the old ration pack was good and I’m looking forward to working my way thru some of the other menu items with clear expectations about certain things prone to going south.  The entire meal scored 1090 calories – the largest contributor was the nut mix (weighing-in at 400 calories) and 90 calories from the orange drink.  Both were bad resulting in a loss of almost half of the meal's total energy contribution.