I will use the name Misha to refer to my guest. He prefers not to be photographed, part of the job.
He's seen brown bag mre's on photos and when in training with US troops in 2016. Has wanted to try one.
We were trying menu 18.
He was weirded out by the spongy bread substance
Of course the famous Jalapeno cheese spread. He said it wasn't spicy enough.
The toaster Stwooodle (as he pronounced it) showed promise. He ate it after the main dish. Wasn't quite sure about the flavor, but liked the idea.
Beef stick, this he liked, wondered why it was so small? He said, did America run out of meat? He asked if its possible to make the meat less of a rubber tire consistency and more of a food consistency? Like actual dry meat, but not dehydrated to the max?
Raisins. fine.
The "substance" as Misha called it, with the cheese spread, was good. He enjoyed kneading the cheese and designing the most efficient way to get the whole pack of cheese onto 1 peice of bread
Misha is now convinced more than ever that all real american food is red in color either to start with, or ends up being red.
The Beef Ravioli he thought was quite good, not mushy, not just a puddle of different mushy substances.
He ate a few spoons with the main dish being just the way it is. By the way, unless we're complete idiots, we couldn't get the US FRH to work properly, was hot for 1-2 minutes, did not heat anything up.
I then recommended we add half of the Cheese spread to the ravioli. So we did, mixed it up real nice, and spread it on the spongy substance, twas pretty good. The cheese did thicken up the liquidy red sauce in the pouch. Misha said adding the cheese gave it a spicier tone, and he liked that. He said Russian and Ukrainian MREs dont offer anything spicy.
Misha was really surprised that there was 1 cold water beverage. The tropical base mix, was very weird. I added...barely 1/2 cup of water, and the packet had a crap full of powder, but the taste was almost bitter? orr.... like really old stale flat water with a bitter taste.
He thought each brown bag had a minimum of 5-6 drinks. he says doesn't have time for coffee. But cold water drinks, he said they wish the Russian mre's they capture from russian trenches and outposts don't have too much cold water drink mix either. As an athlete, he wishes all mre's had a lot more to drink. (beverage powder I mean, and he says variety matters)
He is surprised there isn't really too much you can just stuff in a pocket to keep your mouth busy when on patrol or sitting for hours looking through binoculars. He thought there would be a huge stick of something like beef jerky, or a couple power bars, a dispenser of glucose tablets. says that kind of stuff he expected in the American ration. He says they buy glucose tablets in bulk, and have tube in the vest all the time.
He is not impressed with the amount of food.
He is wondering, if the hot chow in the military is also all red?
He wanted to know if Marines, and the different Special Forces types, do they have unique meals?
