French RIER Menu #5 B/B April 2020
Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2020 2:09 pm
I've been having trouble getting my full reviews to go through, so I decided to break them up into parts. Please let me know if this method is frowned upon and I will work on a different method.
So today, I decided to pull out a French single meal ration. From what I understand, these are used when individuals go out on exercises that do not require a 24-hour ration. I have tried a few of these, and I have a number of them left, but this one is close to its expiration date so I wanted to get it out of the way. The menu is one that I've had in the 24 hour versions, and happens to be one of my favorites.
A few observations I had while unpacking this:
- All of the French single meal rations that I have eaten to this point have had 2021 dates. This box was significantly different from those. The 2021 meals all had a paper label on the face of the box. This one was printed directly on the box. It had less print overall. The only additional print I found on the box was on one side.
- This meal contained a packet of coffee. In my experience, I have not seen beverages of any kind included in the later single meals. While they give you a sachet of coffee, they do not provide any sweetener or creamer.
- I could tell by feeling the components as they came out that this meal had suffered some heat damage. Specifically, the chocolate bar had clearly melted at some point and slumped to one side of the wrapper and the jelly bar was noticably hardened.
- In addition to the heat damaged, there was a slight amount of physical damage, as both the stove and biscuit boxes were somewhat crushed.
- Stove? Did you say stove? Yes. In the later meals, there is no stove provided. This ration had a smaller version of the esbit type stove that is a standard addition in the 24-hour French rations. A review of the stove will follow. That would explain the RIER designation, rather than the later meals' RIE labeling, indicating, in this case, a reheatable meal. Later single meal rations are limited to mains that are expected to be eaten cold.
There were no accessory packs, spices, cold drinks, or utensils that you might find in the 24-hour rations.
Reviews of individual components, as I consume them, will be forthcoming.
So today, I decided to pull out a French single meal ration. From what I understand, these are used when individuals go out on exercises that do not require a 24-hour ration. I have tried a few of these, and I have a number of them left, but this one is close to its expiration date so I wanted to get it out of the way. The menu is one that I've had in the 24 hour versions, and happens to be one of my favorites.
A few observations I had while unpacking this:
- All of the French single meal rations that I have eaten to this point have had 2021 dates. This box was significantly different from those. The 2021 meals all had a paper label on the face of the box. This one was printed directly on the box. It had less print overall. The only additional print I found on the box was on one side.
- This meal contained a packet of coffee. In my experience, I have not seen beverages of any kind included in the later single meals. While they give you a sachet of coffee, they do not provide any sweetener or creamer.
- I could tell by feeling the components as they came out that this meal had suffered some heat damage. Specifically, the chocolate bar had clearly melted at some point and slumped to one side of the wrapper and the jelly bar was noticably hardened.
- In addition to the heat damaged, there was a slight amount of physical damage, as both the stove and biscuit boxes were somewhat crushed.
- Stove? Did you say stove? Yes. In the later meals, there is no stove provided. This ration had a smaller version of the esbit type stove that is a standard addition in the 24-hour French rations. A review of the stove will follow. That would explain the RIER designation, rather than the later meals' RIE labeling, indicating, in this case, a reheatable meal. Later single meal rations are limited to mains that are expected to be eaten cold.
There were no accessory packs, spices, cold drinks, or utensils that you might find in the 24-hour rations.
Reviews of individual components, as I consume them, will be forthcoming.