Polish Military MRE

[Big_jo]

Hello all,

Well, my consignment of MREs arrived from Poland!

I got Chicken Casserole, Pork with Rice, Chicken With Rice, Bograc (a Polish beef stew) and, Chicken Dopiaza (a curry dish), and two can of Rye Bread. It cost me about €50 all in.

So, the unpacking!

I'm opting to try the bograc first, since it isn't a dish I have tried before. The contents of the MRE:

We have (from green bag clockwise)
MRE Bag
'Special Hard Biscuits' - probably a bad translation, but it is the one provided
The Main entree - Comes in a foil tray like an EPA or RICR
Water - to activate the FRH
Sesame Seed treats - seeds in caramel, come in several crisp wafers
Fruit - A foil bag of dried fruit
FRH
Condensed milk
Accessory pack
Soup Mix - vegetable
Knife, fork, spoon, teaspoon and napkin set.
Fruit flavoured drink powder

[Big_jo]

The accessory pack:

Contains:
Fruity vitamin C candy
Coffee Candy
Teabag
Pepper and Salt
Matches
A Plastic Bag
Minty chewing gum
Sugar
Coffee
Toilet Paper
Moist wipe


I can't work out what the plastic bag is for, as it isn't sealable, so it would be really impractical to use it for beverages.

Anyway, let's see how it tastes!!! My starter is soup, with a glass of fruit juice.

At this point I should say that to begin with I couldn't tell the difference between the packets, I ended up pouring the juice mix into a bowl before I noticed the fruity smell and transferred it to a glass
The juice is a tasty mixture of fruits, berries of some kind I think. The soup is pleasant, although a little salty. It has some nice bits of corn and other vegetables in it, although there isn't enough mixture to make very much soup unless you make it watery.

Now, I put the main entree into the heater and made a start on the biscuits:

Well, the translation must have been close, because these biscuits are very hard! Even so, they are edible, and trying them with a little condensed milk on they are quite good. They're flavoured with carraway seeds, giving them an unusual, delicate flavour. The condensed milk is very sweet, like condensed milk anywhere I guess.

[Big_jo]

So, the main entree! Apologies for the photo quality, my hands were covered in gravy at the time!

The HotPack FRH seems to heat up very well, quickly. It's certainly better then most of the other US MRE FRHs that I have used in the past, although this may just be because they were older? This FRH is certainly bigger than the military FRHs that I've seen, so it could probably heat 2 entrees at the same time.

So, how does it taste? Very, very good! It is certainly joint first with MRE beef stew out of all the MREs that I have tried, and in fact I would be happy to eat this any day of the week, it compares very well against any commercially available ready-meals I have eaten.

It contains mainly beef and potatoes, with a few other small vegetables, and is nice and hot meal that would be perfect in the cold outdoors.

I washed it down with tea and condensed milk, which make a very sweet tea drink that I actually found a little sweet for my taste. To finish, I'm having the fruit and sesame seeds:

The rasins are fresh, sweet and moist, and the walnuts and banana are crisp. The sesame seed treats had a few holes in the packet when I opened the MRE, but apart from getting seeds all over the floor, the food seems fine.


My overall impression is very good. This MRE provided a very tasty, nutritious meal that was also filling. The date on the bag says it would have lasted until the end of 2010 (about a year), but the dates on the entree were in the middle of 2011, and other components should be good until at least 2012. There isn't a huge variety on the military meals available, but the manufacturers (Arpol) http://www.sklep.arpol.net.pl/en,start.html provide many different types of MRE all varying slightly, so there are perhaps a dozen menus.

All in all, it would seem that the Polish Armed forces have made a very good effort to provide their troops with a high quality MRE.

If anyone is interested in trade just let me know, before i eat them all!

[Stef]

Dziękuję bardzo!
All that looks pretty cool, maybe I'll order one pack or two...

[housil]

Thx for that rare review!

[saladp]

these rations have a phenomenal view. congratulations!
one more order to the list of test day

[Biltong]

Nice job, looking forward to see what you think of the Rye Bread.

[German_EPA]

look like the "new" TRAVELLUNCH bars...

[Big_jo]

So, I tried the Chicked Dopiazza MRE during my weekly 'curry night' with my friends.

It differed by having pate instead of condensed milk, and a cranberry fruit and cereal bar instead of the fruit and nut mix.

Pate - Comes in a small can, like a EPA, RICR etc. Strong taste of liver (well, it is pate!).
Cranberry bar - made so that the top and bottom have a layer of rice paper on them. Why? So that you can take the bar from the packet and hold it without getting your fingers sticky - clever!!

The main entree, whilst containing losts of well textured chicken and vegetables, fell short on taste. It tasted like the cheapest frozen curry meal you can purchase in supermarkets - not very good, but edible at least. This entree is provided by HotPack in the UK, as well as the FRH.

I won't be getting this one again, more Bograc in future!!!!