When I was in the service, I used to try to bogart the Vegetarian MRE’s because, it always seemed to me, the menu designers put a little extra flavor into the veggie rations. Keep things interesting. So, for that reason, I was sort of excited to review this MRE for y’all.
As per my earlier reviews, this personally-curated MRE was stored in a cool, dry place for the past decade: my basement. Until lunch time. Today.
The tan outer bag was well sealed and intact. I was able to pull apart the bag, as advertised.
The contents of Menu No. 12:
Vegetable Patty in Barbecue Sauce
Potato Sticks
Cranberries, Osmotic
Wheat Snack Bread (x2)
Chocolate Banana Nut Muffin Top
Accessory Packet
— Matches
— Moist Towelette
— Iced Tea Drink Mix Lemon Flavored
— Tabasco sauce
— salt
— gum
— tissue paper (Lighthouse)
AP Brown spoon
Hot Beverage Bag
FRH
Accessory packet:
While waiting for my Vegetable Patty to warm up, I opened the potato sticks and osmotic cranberries. The term ‘osmotic’ always gives me pause. I’m always a little nervous that they will be ‘osmotic’ after I’ve consumed them and pull precious bodily fluids out of my system. What might that cause?
I ate ‘em anyway. They smelled great and seemed amazingly fresh. They tasted good, albeit with a bit of a sugary crust. I think you can see in the photo that they had lost their vibrant red color to a degree and weren’t as appetizing looking as commercial Craisins, but they tasted good and were strangely addictive.
The potato sticks were fresh as well. I’m not sure what it means for a potato stick to be ‘fresh’, but they were crunchy, salty, had a vaguely potato flavor and the oil hadn’t gone rancid. Success in my book.
My tasting assistant was curious about these little crunchy tidbits, but after a trial, he became an enthusiast.
The orange drink was a bit of a disappointment. Firstly, why isn’t there vitamin C in this beverage? And secondly, it doesn’t taste much like an orange drink. Maybe a bit like Orange Gatorade. Not very appealing, really. Without any real nutritional value, I probably wouldn’t spend time or effort making this item.
Once the veggie patty was warmed up, I plated it along with the Wheat Snack Bread. One of the breads had looked pretty well squashed and deformed and I was sure it would be broken, but both came out well. Both tasted fairly fresh with that odd, slightly chemical, preservative flavor with a hint of sweetness.
The Veggies patty was fairly bland. The BBQ sauce had a nice sweet tomato flavor and helped an anemic veggie patty to be more palatable. I added the Tabasco sauce after my initial taste. The Tabasco was great. I swear there was more heat in this Tabasco sauce than there is in the bottle of Tabasco in my fridge. Is it possible that Tabasco peppers are becoming less hot and spicy?
The Tabasco perked the whole dish up and made it more enjoyable. I ate the remainder of the patty with the snack bread. Very filling and, overall, a decent tasting lunch.
The iced tea mix was good. A bit sweet, but still had some nice tannin bitterness and a citrus hint from the lemon flavoring. This is something I’d be happy to drink on a regular basis.
For dessert I ate the muffin top. This was pretty darn good. I had wondered if the nuts might have gone rancid, but they were fine. It was moist with oil, sweet, and had a distinct cocoa flavor. One of the better “muffin tops” I’ve had. I thought I’d just eat a portion, but I ended up eating the whole thing. Not bad.
For house keeping purposes, I’ll add that the moist towelette was still moist and useful. The gum had a nice initial burst go minty flavor, but then became a little bitter. The matches worked, at least one test match did. And the tissue paper seemed in good working order, though it went untested.
I’m a coffee drinker and I’m always disappointed when a ration doesn’t include coffee. The Army is always pretty good about getting you coffee, and I don’t recall ever going without a cuppa joe when it was needed, but still, an MRE doesn’t seem complete without some Coffee, Instant.
As if to remind me that there wasn’t any coffee included, a Hot beverage bag was included….with nothing to use it for. But, as I’ve previously mentioned, I always saved my Hot Beverage Bag because they come in handy for so many different things. They are tough and more or less waterproof. Save ‘em for later!
All in all, I’ll give this ration two thumbs up. For a ten year old meal, it was remarkably good. Just goes to show that a carefully stored MRE can last a long, long time.
Thanks for sticking with a long-winded review. Bon appetit!
