Favorite MRE Stuff?

[dirtbag]

the pb and grape jelly, the crackers ( except the jalapeño ones),the cheese spreads (except jalapeño), the wheat snack bread, the cocoa powder ( specially the old ones),the fudge brownies, the pound cakes in any flavor, the old instant coffee type I, the flavor drink powder in any flavor (not the enhanced ones),the cheese tortellinis, the beef stew, the tortillas. the old oatmeal cookie bar compressed, Ham, Chicken a la king, chicken with rice, beef and mushrooms and the old nut cakes.

Pretty much everything, eh?

[rationtin440]

Interesting that Bypah mentioned the old coffee; when we were still issued MCIs in my unit, about 99 times out of 100 the sanka coffee packet would be hard as a rock, and the only way to get to it was to actually bend the packet a few times and gently tap on it so the chunks of petrified coffee would fall into your cup or empty MCI can. I guess they did not keep as well as intended, perfectly safe though. We noticed the same thing with the dry creamer packets, but our ever resourceful crew-chief usualy had a jar of dry creamer on board. One of my favorites is still mixing the coffee and cocoa powder (from MREs, no way would I trust MCI stuff by now) with some dry creamer, add boiling water, consume slowly.

[Bypah]

LOL...well not everything.
But I like and miss the old flavors of the MCI's. When I was a kid I always got plenty of those cans from my family members in the Army. I specialy liked the scrambled eggs and ham in a can with the crackers that came with the chocolate disks.
I still have some of the original Coffee type I packets at home I got from some survival rations ( the old tin can like ones...) and believe me when I use them they taste just great!.

[Ruleryak]

The old rectangular Cookie Bar, Chocolate Covered is my favorite item of all time. Close second are the Peaches, Freeze Dried - shame both haven't been issued in decades. I still have a few packs of peaches, but no chocolate covered cookie bars at the moment.

Favorite entree was the Cheese Omelet With Vegetables. Favorite modern production entree would either be Beef Brisket or Maple Sausage - hard choice there. I honestly eat more UGRs than MREs over the last few years though and have to say the beef steak au jus is fantastic.

[mreheater72]

Favorite MRE Stuff, the choice is really hard :

- Of course the "vintage" awesome NUT CAKES, especially the CHERRY and CHOCOLATE
-"Vintage" freeze dried STRAWBERRIES
-"Vintage" Accessory Packet Candies: VANILLA FUDGE, CHOCOLATE FUDGE
-"Vintage" POTATO PATTY
-"Vintage" HAM SLICES
- CHILI MAC
- CHILI WITH BEANS
- BEEF STEW
- CHICKEN PESTO PASTA
- GRANOLA WITH MILK AND BLUEBERRIES
- FUDGE BROWNIE
- and of course as other guys here mentioned before the good old spray dried COFFEE INTSTANT TYPE I

So long mreheater72

[mreheater72]

Interesting that Bypah mentioned the old coffee; when we were still issued MCIs in my unit, about 99 times out of 100 the sanka coffee packet would be hard as a rock, and the only way to get to it was to actually bend the packet a few times and gently tap on it so the chunks of petrified coffee would fall into your cup or empty MCI can. I guess they did not keep as well as intended, perfectly safe though. We noticed the same thing with the dry creamer packets, but our ever resourceful crew-chief usualy had a jar of dry creamer on board. One of my favorites is still mixing the coffee and cocoa powder (from MREs, no way would I trust MCI stuff by now) with some dry creamer, add boiling water, consume slowly.

…I still have some of the original Coffee type I packets at home I got from some survival rations ( the old tin can like ones...) and believe me when I use them they taste just great!.

Here are some photos of my COFFEE INSTANT TYPE I stock:




Sometimes I take one pouch out of my supply case and mix a fine hot beverage . I never had a packet where the coffee was hard, it was always powdery . The spray dried vintage coffee is a thousand times better than the modern freeze dried.

BTW: Here two COFFEE INSTANT TYPE I pouches in comparison (I showed that photo here in another topic before). At the first glance they are similar, but the weight of the contents is different : Left it is 2,5 grams, right it is 2,2 grams, that is 12 % less with the same amount (8 ounces) of water . The 2,5 grams pouch was in MCIs and very early MREs, the 2,2 grams packet was in MREs from about 1987-1990. Some note to the first pic of my coffee supply: The left half of the case is filled with 2,2 grams pouches, the right with 2,5 grams pouches


So long mreheater72

[Ruleryak]

Man oh man that's a lot of old coffee! Even that much though will only last so long - it's rough when you like to consume stuff they don't make anymore

[ElevatorFan73]

Say, do you like coffee by any chance?

[rationtin440]

By the way, does anyone recall when the sanka coffee finally disappeared altogether? I was talking with some guys from the first unit I was in and they recall both sanka and "army issue" coffee packets in our MCIs, and that the sanka packets did indeed get very hard but the mil-spec ones were fine. Ok now I'm confused! Not sure what would cause sanka coffee to hold up less than mil-spec coffee from the same cases of MCIs from 1978-1980.

[RockyRaab]

One major difference is that Sanka is decaf.

Trivia item: Did you know that Sanka's bright orange package label became so closely identified with decaffeinated coffee that even today restaurants use orange handles on their decaf serving pots?