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I received a brown bag ration from Oldsmokey that he got in an Ebay auction of these mystery LRPs. We speculated on what could be inside but the bags other than a FD entree which could be felt from the outside.

Here is the menu he sent to me. Vague bag about half the thickness of an MRE bag and with only a vague sticker with the main menu printed on it. Inside I found it to be a Mountain House FD meal with a main and an accessory pack. That answered the who made it portion but nothing else. The accessory pack was the real winner here I thought. Pilot crackers, Hershey's Tropical Bar, Orange Ade, Cocoa, Spoon ,Salt, Pepper, Napkin I had to look over every packet to finally find a date code that I am not 100% sure on how to read (11678). This was on the Orange packet. Now on to opening the stuff up.

Bag of chili with beans Opened. It had an odd smell but not a gross one..just odd Rehydrated. I tasted a few small spoonfuls and didn't get a gag reflex or the usual tell tale signs it was a bag of botulism soup. The flavor was just "off" in an odd way so I had to toss the rest. The Orangeade. It had long since seen it's better days and actually broke when slightly bent. The Hershey Tropical bar was obviously bloomed but I figured it might taste ok.... I was so wrong on this. It was like biting into a brick and had less flavor than one. ...............................

The crackers looked perfect but had an obvious bleach smell when the packet was opened. I did not attempt the cocoa even though it was probably the one thing not spoiled in the whole meal. Oldsmokey contacted Mountain House to get some possible details on DOP and when/where these would have been sold. They seemed interested in them but gave no details on them yet. This is just a neat look at a civilian ration that might have been pretty cool back in whatever day it was made. I hope you enjoyed looking at this and if you have ever seen these or have info about them, please let us know what you know.


The back of the chili packet

The Mountain House package is from the Late 70s....Seems I bought some like that in 78,79, or 80....

Wow, cool find!

A couple of educated guess's here:

1) That MH tried a prototype MRE back in the late 70's about the same time Natick was experimenting with early MRE's and

2) Even though MH was still in the civilian market for FD foods they were putting a test item out to market something military looking for civilian consumer's. Might have been a success if the idea took off.

3) Or MH was trying to sell the military something to fill a stop gap in rations. Maybe in the transitory period between MCI's and MRE's. Definitely looks like it could be passed off for an early MCW. The bag and the sticker look like something Natick could make.

I wonder if the MH packaging revision number may give us some help with dating (Rev 11-8)? Possibly November, 1978 or 1988? However the other package says Rev 8-0.... So maybe this is just some internal tracking # to keep track of changing ingredients.

Why not ask MH?

Looking at the font and style on the packaging with the swirl and dots design I'd guess its 70s and the date of 11678, would be 6th Nov 1978 for America

After a quick google the logo on the packet seems to match Moutain Houses branding for the 70s and these cans are dated 1979
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Gaz