I decided to start the day off by trying a 1982 Beef, Diced with Gravy MRE produced by Sopakco. I've never had this one before so let's take a look at it!
This ration includes crackers, beans with tomato sauce, chocolate covered brownie, beef, diced with gravy, cheese spread and an accessory packet.
Here are the contents of the accessory packet.
And a quick look at the beans with tomato sauce and beef, diced with gravy in their retort pouches.
While the retort pouches were in boiling water, I decided to prepare the coffee with creamer and sugar. As you may be able to tell, the creamer was starting to chunk up but I decided to add it to the coffee and sugar anyway since it smelled okay and I was sure it was still usable.
I was almost positive that the cheese spread was no longer good so I decided to open the package by cutting it open from the top to get a better look at it. I tasted a small bite and my tongue instantly felt tingly, like it was telling me not the eat it. It just smelled like very aged, sharp cheddar cheese. I don't think it looked too bad but it certainly didn't look appetizing.
Here's the entire MRE, prepared.
And a quick look at the chocolate covered brownie, broken in half.
Much to my surprise, this MRE was still mostly edible! The beef, diced with gravy tasted a lot like a pot roast or a stew and the beef chunks didn't coat my tongue with a sour, bitter flavor like many of these old MREs do. While the taste wasn't bad, this wouldn't have been my first choice since I was getting it stuck in my teeth, even after a few bites. Hopefully anyone that had to eat this back in the day had dental floss readily available. The beans also didn't taste too bad although they were a bit sour when I bit into them. Worst case scenario, I think would could eat the entirety of this MRE and still be okay. I didn't do that out of caution since my goal was just to document the experience.
The chocolate covered brownie tasted okay but I think the nuts were bad since my tongue felt pretty numb while chewing it. Since the cheese spread was bad, the crackers didn't have anything to go with them so I just ate them plain which was like eating a thicker saltine cracker or the Mountain House Pilot Crackers, but with salt added. I'm sure one could have crumpled them up and added it to the beef chunks and that would have improved the texture a bit. The coffee with creamer and sugar tasted great. Unforutunely, I didn't have any cocoa beverage powder to go with it but I still enjoyed it. Despite not being a fan of instant coffee, I'd forgotten how much better creamer and sugar makes it.