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Slovenian Ration - Type B
Chocolate Muesli / Pasta Porchini / Chicken & Potato Stew


Part 2 - Lunch

I ended up having lunch for dinner, but it worked out just fine Check out part 1 here. Here's a lineup:

• Pasta Porchini
• Bread Substitute
• Tuna in oil
• Energy Bar
• Vitamin-mineral Drink
• Vitamin Enriched Bonbons

Starting out, now that we're on to meal number two out of the ration one minor failing has cropped up! The full day's ration comes with one set of cuttlery and it's fairly flimsy. I was worried I'd break the spoon if I used it to stir the pasta so I used a metal spoon. It was a well founded worry, because when I went to plate it I did end up snapping off a portion of the spoon's handle in the process on the first scoop. These things were difficult to clean after each meal too. There are crevices on the undersides of the fork and spoon that just did not want to let go of food bits. There's only the one napkin for the whole day too, although there is one wet wipe for each meal so that's not as much of a problem.

Ok, now on to the food! For the entree, we've got pasta with Porcini mushrooms. Just a note - in the lists of items in this and my other reviews I always write them out as they are in the ration itself (if there's English text in the ration that is). That's why there will be mistakes or different spellings for things - in this case Porchini vs. Porcini. The pasta was elbow macaroni, and it was paired with a cream sauce and Porcini mushrooms. Everything rehydrated perfectly - nothing too hard or too soft. I'd gladly have this one again!

Tuna fish in oil went great with the foam bread crackers. I'm usually only a fan of tuna in water, but in this case I think it was just fine with olive oil. The extra fat from the oil can't hurt right?

I really enjoyed the energy bar. Like a bar I had in a Danish ration recently, this was another one based mostly on fruit. It's apple, pear, sour cherry, coconut, raisin, blackberry, and oat fiber. It was very soft and tasted completely fresh.

While eating this meal I had another glass of the vitamin-mineral drink (same flavor as in part 1), and a mug of the tea. The tea turned out to be sweetened iced tea. They provide enough powder for 800ml of water, but I chose to only use enough powder for a cup of water (236ml) and saved the rest for another time. 3 and a half cups of tea would have been a bit too much. The tablets were a vitamin enriched treat on the side.

Thanks for reading!

Great review Ruleryak, thanks for sharing!

It sounds like it would be a worthwhile improvement to include some more cutlery and napkins, but otherwise, it sounds like an overall well-rounded ration.

You know... It seems like a really nice gift for anybody you happen to know who could end up overseas with the military would be to give them one of the long handed titanium spoons. They run less than $10, and there's a hole for a lanyard so they're less likely to get lost.

Ruleryak wrote: The pasta was elbow macaroni, and it was paired with a cream sauce and Porcini mushrooms. Everything rehydrated perfectly - nothing too hard or too soft. I'd gladly have this one again!

I know these Reiter pouches from early German EPa leicht.To me, their dishes were "nice" or "OK", but far from MH or "Drytech".
That tea was also from Germany.

good review, and excellent point on the cutlery. I've heard from my cousins that one thing people loved getting out of the MRE's was the spoon, and he would sometimes see the foreign troops that came thru with a MRE spoon hanging around their necks. After seeing how these items held up, I can understand why now....

From what I've eaten over the years I'd rank the current UK spork and the US spoon as the best overall utensils, in that order. The spork I rank a bit higher because of the length and the fact that sporks are the best of both worlds.