2005 Beefsteak with Mushrooms MRE Review

Reviews and taste-tests of any MREs from 1981-present
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SentientTootsieRoll
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:26 pm
Location: US

2005 Beefsteak with Mushrooms MRE Review

Post by SentientTootsieRoll » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:33 pm

For breakfast this morning I broke open a 2005 Beeksteak with Mushrooms MRE produced by The Wornick Company. This is another meal I don't recall having, at least in recent memory, so I was curious about this one.
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If we take a look at the components of the MRE, this one includes strawberry dairyshake powder, crackers, 2 Tootsie Rolls, strawberry jam, western style beans, beef steak with mushroom gravy, steak sauce, an accessory packet and a flameless ration heater.
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Here's a closeup of the Tootsie Rolls that were included in that unmarked packaging.
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A closeup of the beefsteak with mushrooms and the western style beans in their retort pouches. As I normally do, I placed these in boiling water for 10 minutes since I don't care to waste time with the flameless ration heaters.
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Here are the components in the accessory packet. Luckily the coffee wasn't crystallized!
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And here's the entire meal on a tray and ready to eat!
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The beefsteak tasted like an overly preserved chunk of beef, not unlike something you'd expect to find in a school cafeteria. The mushrooms were soft and a bit slimy and the gravy had a cheap salty beef flavor. While it was still edible, I had to add some of the steak sauce to cover up that weird chemical preservative taste. The steak sauce was pretty sugary and tasted like the cheapest, store brand steak sauce you could find at the store. In this case, it did the job well enough. The western style beans were actually pretty enjoyable, they basically tasted like a chili without any meat. They had a slightly spicy, jalapeno flavor and they helped add to the protein content of this meal.

The strawberry jam was pretty dark and tasted very aged and not fresh at all. I didn't end up finishing the crackers and jam because of that. The strawberry dairyshakes in these old MREs used to be and still is one of my favorite MRE items of all time. I just like how perfectly creamy and sweet they are. The strawberry flavoring is as artificial as you can imagine but man, I wish they still produced these. The Tootsie Rolls still tasted amazing. Even in badly stored MREs, I've never seen Tootsie Rolls go bad. I think they would be a great long term food storage option. As mentioned before, the coffee wasn't crystallized as commonly found in the old red Taster's Choice packets. This led to a good cup of coffee to finish everything off.

norge
Posts: 1708
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:57 pm

Re: 2005 Beefsteak with Mushrooms MRE Review

Post by norge » Sun Nov 29, 2020 9:36 am

loved this mre,tobad the jam was black.

nice review :D

cheers ken

SentientTootsieRoll
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:26 pm
Location: US

Re: 2005 Beefsteak with Mushrooms MRE Review

Post by SentientTootsieRoll » Sun Nov 29, 2020 1:40 pm

Thank you. Looking back, this MRE pretty much filled me up for the day, probably because it's so protein heavy from the beef, beans and the dairyshake. Some MREs leave me feeling hungry after a few hours because they are so carb dense. From my perspective, I wish they would make them more like this menu.

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