MREInfo.com

ON YOUR FEET!
Hey everyone, Craig here coming at you with a very exciting review! After brief moments of being overwhelmingly excited and hungry...(still hungry afterwards) I was ready to dig into the MCI, which actually is a first for me... So yeah... SUPER OVERWHELMINGLY EXCITED! What else can I say haha... LETS EAT!

Oh yeah... AS YOU WERE! Sorry, I get carried away sometimes:D

Here's a quick shot of the contents of the meal
I managed to date the packaging of the meal to sometime in October of 1980
Here are the following date codes of the menus contents; (to the best of my knowledge)
B-1 Unit 1080
Pears quarters 1030
Peanut butter 1005
Beef with spiced sauce 1030


Let's start with the good ol' B-1, I used a can opener on all of the cans to give them a clean, straight cut. After opening this can I wasn't repulsed believe it or not, it smelled of a faint whiff of off chocolate and dusty, old crackers (I think this is a trend with U.S. Rations, At Least it is for me)
So I began with the taste test! The crackers were very salty, like overly salty! Like... I mean stupid salty. Honestly, they weren't pleasant. They tasted of (very) salty crackers that were once soggy and then dried over again.... 10,000 times. So.... Not good, at all. The inside of the can looked absolutely pristine, just to add a little side note. Now onto the coconut chocolate hockey puck. Up close this thing SMELLED! It was like old decrepit chocolate with maybe an ever so small hint of coconut. This was bad... I mean BAD! Like I bit off a little nibble and I started to get that back of the throat feeling. The initial taste was pretty terrible, it was something like if you would have gone exploring behind your grandmas couch and found a 35 year old piece of chocolate with coconut and you ate it... Yeah, that fits PERFECTLY! I did get some coconut which surprised me and that's where I put two and two together that it was the coconut that had gone off and made this as bad as it was. A tiny little bite permeated throughout my entire mouth, and it left an after taste of mold... It wasn't moldy, but I've always related a certain smell of mold that kinda smells like gone off chocolate and this was it, except I was tasting it... AND IT WOULDN'T GO AWAY. This resulted in me drowning myself in Pepsi to wash away the permeating after taste. I sure do love coconut, especially toasted and 35 years old:)

Next I went for the accessory packet, it held up fine. Nothing special. Although I did really like the little box of chiclets. They were still fully colored and intact! So I popped one in, have it a chew and my mouth was instantly full of powder! Sawdust with a thin candy shell YUM!
Moving on! Let's go for the peanut butter... Upon opening the can you can tell the time has separated the oil to the top... Kinda unappetizing, but hey, YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW. It had a very old... Withered away peanut smell, if you can imagine what that smells like, I sure can't:D So I went for a small taste and I revealed something very surprising... It tasted exactly like raw peanuts! No rancid taste or anything bad... Tasted just like peanuts... I mean I guess that's what it is after all of the oil separated. But I thought this was awesome!! It also works great as rubbing compound:) Pears!
Time for daaaaaa pears (goddammit) Now, if you have any experience with older rations it's pretty common for the fruit and syrup in the wet fruit packs or cans to turn black or brown, and from what I've sorta come up with I believe it to be due to the natural sugar in the fruit and syrup just getting old and solidifying (correct me if I'm wrong, these are just my observations) and this can be very repulsive, but 9 times out of 10 they are fine to eat and taste as they should. Well here's where things gets sticky... Literally. These cans tend to lose there seal after years of temperate fluctuation in storage and a number of other things, they will swell up and leak and once they relieve pressure they will stop, in most cases. But, do this for 35 years and it's going to make a really cool mess!!!! And that's exactly what happened to this one. I opened the can and was greeted by two nice looking pear quarters, a hearty black syrup and an explosive smell of rust. That's where I'm sure you could imagine that I took a step back it was a very, very powerful smell, and it was terribly off putting. Unfortunately I won't be eating these, they are way too far gone.
It a shame, because I'd really like to try some MCI fruit of some sort. But oh well, I don't really feel like getting tetanus :DDDDD
AND NOW WE MOVE ON THE THE FEATURE ITEM.

Guys.

Prepare yourselves.

Like really.

This is bad.

Beef with spiced sauce.
I didn't really know what to expect, the can was sealed perfectly, no leakage, no rust, shake rest confirmed no free space within the can. So I cracked it open, now, keep in mind, my stomach has been a little weird during this whole review ever since I ate that chocolate so I'm just gonna tell you know... I was quick to the point when I opened this to take a look. So I cracked the lid, and peeled it up... There wasn't really a smell, so I went to take a look, I saw it, snapped a picture and it was gone. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BUT THAT WAS NOT BEEF IN ANY KIND OF SPICED SAUCE. Just this quick glance left me with so many questions, where did the beef go? Why did it solidify into a log, why does it look like that and what the hell is a "spiced" sauce anyway. But in reality everyone, this was pretty bad. I couldn't bring myself to taste it. I think I may have smelled an alpo-y, cat food-y bouquet of some sort. It was very pleasing, reminded me of fresh lilacs... Well guys, in fear of this thing crawling out of its lair and eating me (how funny would that be?) I discarded of it properly in a hazmat suit. It was pretty repulsive if you ask me, looks like I'd be hungry at the range that day:D Alright everyone! That concludes yet another review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed doing it! Oh, and quick note. I didn't include Ace in this one, I felt that it may have been a little more on the riskier side so I decided to play it safe. I mean, he is my son. He can watch ME die from rotten coconut overdose, I don't mind that.

As always keep an eye out for more reviews! Let me know what you think and have an awesome, safe weekend everyone!

Stay hungry!
Craig

Great review and pics! You're a brave man diving into an MCI!

Excellent review! Sadly I never had the chance to taste one of these MCI's when they were edible either, they were all before my time.

Hahahah!

Craig, that was an AWESOME REVIEW!!

I'm still laughing over here - your commentary is priceless!

Man, those old coconut fudge bars never really hold up - any of those old Fudge Hockey Pucks are all most likely rancid by now.. I have had the displeasure of trying them out I think like 5 times now and every time it is the same old story - I am sorry you had to go through it.. but I can relate! I opened up a 1968 MCI and smoked the Marlboros with my buddy Jamin, and we tried some peanut butter too it was rancid, the coconut fudge bar was the exact same as yours.. one heck of a nasty experience!

It coats your throat with a burning sweet oily sensation and I have no idea what the deal is - but I assume the Sorbitol and the Egg Alubmen change after all those years and that along with the waxy like preservative coating on it you get yourself an adhering nasty coat of death on the roof of your mouth and back of your throat.. such a strange deal.. but now you're one of us! I hope it was worth it!! heheh


I need to compress a couple photos of that MCI I had too - lemme see if I can provide at least one pic under 5MB (Max size to post).


Ok there is one pic - I can provide more if you guys wanna see the hole bit.

As for the Beef in Spiced Sauce.. what a strange looking creature! I'll bet it wasn't bad 35 years ago - but now it is a mere shadow of it's former self. Always cool seeing the inside of these things - thanks again man!


Keep up the awesome work, Craig - your reviews are fantastic!

Tell Ace I said howdy and scratch his belly for me! hehhe

Thx for the very entertaining review!

Cmcilm94 Thanks for the great review and tutorial on the 1980 MCI.
The photos were excellent, it is rare we get a MCI review
The peanut butter was interesting after all these years the oil seemed to vanish Leaving only solid peanut dust or paste. I do remember at the time you had to mix the oil with the solid even brand new in 1979 /81

The crackers seemed to hold up the best of all components. Seems the canners did a good job sealing them up.
You would think the peaches would smell, but they must have not spoiled.
I have tried the Chiclets from 1985 MREs and I agree they have little taste except and rock hard.

Did you open the coffee and creamer? I often wonder about the creamer going bad as I sometimes see oil on the surface of the coffee.

Actually I could have eaten that very meal in the field in 1980. But I can't remember that main course.
Was it supposed to be BBQ or more like corned beef Was there any hint of sauce?

Thanks again