This has been my second chance to try out one of the older Ration, Cold Weather ration items (predecessor to the current production Meal, Cold Weather). I picked these up about a year ago at a surplus store and was surprised to find them. I know some of these components are highly sought after. Some of the packaging was starting to wear down so I decided it would be better to review these sooner than later. The items were randomly assorted in a box, the outer bag was not included. So I decided to pick and choose some items from my collection. This is part 2, what I designated to be the lunch and dinner part of the ration.
Here's a closeup of the beef stew in its packaging. They divided it into rectangular shaped pieces, likely to help conserve space.
Here's what was included in the chocolate bars wrapping.
Here's the entirety of the ration, fully prepared!
The beef stew was pretty good, far better than the 1977 beef stew LRP I had, simply because the beef chunks were of higher quality in the sense that it didn't get stuck in my teeth really badly. The flavor was also slightly improved, being less salty and having more a natural beef flavor. Current production MCW beef stew is similar to this, but tastes even better and the beef chunks are more like cubes and it has more of a natural beef broth flavoring in it. This is close but not quite as good. I added 12 oz of water per the instructions and there which was probably a bit too much for my tastes. Overall, it still tasted pretty fresh. The peas and carrots were perfectly chewy and tasty along with the rest of the stew.
The chocolate covered brownie rarely ever makes it in these older rations. No matter how good or badly they've been stored over the years, they always taste really sour and make my tongue numb. Of all the rations I've tried, I maybe had one that was still somewhat edible. It's super dense and makes me pretty thirsty, I'm not even sure it was that good when it was new.
The chocolate toffee bars were okay but I could tell they were starting to turn. They were still edible, however my tongue was starting to feel just a bit numb after eating both of them. The chocolate flavor was still very strong, it almost reminded me of the toffee Symphony bar you can get at the store, just much cheaper tasting.
The granola bar was pretty gritty, chunky and mildly sweet but perfectly edible. It reminded me of eating something like Post cereal without milk. The oatmeal cookie bar reminds me of Datrex bars, it's firm and tastes a bit like a dog treat or something. Even still, I really like it. It's filling, mildly sweet and doesn't make me that thirsty, surprisingly.
The orange drink was really sweet but had a strong artificial orange flavor. It's like Tang but a bit sweeter. I enjoyed it! The iced tea was great too! It's a good sugar boost and was a great way to end this ration experience!
Lastly, I had this escalloped potatoes with pork ration. I decided to try this late on. I had to tilt the camera in a weird angle to show the entire label.
Here's the inside of its packaging. It's yellow in color, much like the 1977 version I had. And it's a rectangular shape like the beef stew one.
Here it was, prepared. First off, it was way better than the 1977 LRP version of this menu I had because this one actually had flavor! Not much, but I could tell they invested some R&D in this. It tasted super processed but the bits of pork had flavor and it stood out. I couldn't taste much cheese in this but the potatoes gave it a nicer texture, although they didn't have much flavor either. Overall, not my favorite simply because it just didn't have much flavor.
just love the RCWs specialy the 1989 ones 