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Greetings!

I was feeling rather review happy today so I decided to dig into the Forbidden Box of Old MREs No One Should Eat. So it was that I dug up a Chicken Stew menu produced in 1995 by Cinpac Inc. I've only had a few of their rations before and they've held up well.

Let's take a look, shall we? From my past experience, I've not had much luck with older rations containing anything with chicken. While commonly still edible, it often tastes very sour. I've honestly had better luck with beef entrees tasting much better in the long run. Has anyone noticed this?

Here's everything all laid out on the table: And just for posterity's sake, here's a list of what we've got:
-Chicken Stew Entree
-Thermostablized Pineapple (dated 5053)
-Standard MRE Crackers
-Grape Jelly
-Pound Cake
-Sugar Free Fruit Punch Drink Mix
-Cocoa Beverage Base Type 1
-MRE Spoon
-Flameless Ration Heater
-Accessory Packet A

This looks like a pretty solid meal. I don't have much hope for the actual entree, but I'm really curious to see what the pineapples with look like. Let's get everything opened up and prepared. First, I will began with the entree itself. The FRH did not work, unfortunately. This is strange because I recently had 1994 Corn Beef Hash which still had a functioning FRH. I wonder what the storage conditions have to be for those to retain their proper use. Anyway, I grabbed a newer, better 2014 FRH and used that to heat it up. It worked out well! Upon opening the pouch, I noticed a less than desirable smell, but I poured it out regardless. I'm afraid to say that the chicken stew entree did not hold up. It had a very sour taste and I didn't want to chance it any further.

The pineapples are the real elephant in the room due to their odd color. They did not smell or taste very good. Imagine what composting apples taste and smell like. This is quite like that. So, it didn't have a "bad" smell, necessarily, but it's obvious that they are no longer edible.

Luckily, from hereon out, the rest of the meal was still edible. The crackers and grape jelly tasted delicious as did the pound cake. It held up very well and tasted a lot like what they label as "Marble Pound Cake" in the modern rations.

The cocoa powder was beginning to form in big chunks, but most of it poured out of the pouch and stirred well without any issue. It tasted like any other MRE cocoa - amazing!

The fruit punch was also enjoyable. It had a very sweet, yet thirst quenching taste to it.

Overall, I wouldn't say this meal earned the Stood the Test of Time® seal of approval, but hey! If you like pound cake, crackers, cocoa and a nice fruit drink, this may be just what you're after!

Yeah, the chicken stew wasn't very fresh tasting when they were fresh.

That's a good idea putting the pineapple in the mug, you don't want any of the rancid juices to soak into the crackers or cake
The FRH pads contain magnesium, iron filings, and sodium chloride (salt). Over time, moisture from the air changes the structure of the salt and makes it less effective.
That's why the FRH bags are sealed to prevent this from happening as much as possible, and why we have to tear a strip at the top to open it. It's also why some people put salt water in the FRH bag instead of fresh water, it helps to replenish the damaged salt and get a nice chemical reaction going.

shawker71 wrote:Yeah, the chicken stew wasn't very fresh tasting when they were fresh.

Seems to me like it would have tasted like stuffing or something along those lines. I'm going to go out onto a limb and assume that if this meal were fresh, I'd probably enjoy it. Stuffing is awesome and I have a nasty tendency to eat more of it than I should during Thanksgiving.

Westview wrote:It's also why some people put salt water in the FRH bag instead of fresh water, it helps to replenish the damaged salt and get a nice chemical reaction going.

I actually decided to give this a go, and holy cow! It really gets those things going like mad. Within just a few seconds, the FRH bag began bubbling up and began to blow up like a balloon! Needless to say, it made my ration incredibly hot. 10/10, will do it again.

Stuffing? No. It tasted like the tuna. Not good.