RCIR Breakfast Review

[Rationista]

A little review of breakfast, RCIR style.

So this is what I've chosen from the RCIR:

Breakfast items

Coffee, Cacao Beverage (Hot Chocolate), Muesli aux fraises, 2 packs of sweet biscuits (from 4 packs) and I'm going to wash it all down with Peppermint tea.

So first up....

Hot Chocolate

Very tasty...quite a good rich chocolate flavour and not too sweet. Quite a small serving.

Next I decided to make some coffee to have with my muesli.

Coffee

I decided to have the coffee black as there isn't any creamer included...it was very good. Made with the specified amount of water, it was pleasant and strong.

The muesli is really nice...my favourite of the RCIR cereals that I've had so far. The strawberry flavour is quite natural and not overpowering. The oats are nice and it has good texture. I think it would be nice made with hot water to give a kind of fruity porridge.

Muesli

Next up are the biscuits. To be honest these are probably the thing that I am least keen on in the RCIR. They are nice and robust and they do travel well but this seems to be achieved by sacrificing the eating quality a bit. They are very hard and yet not really crispy. These ones are slightly flavoured with chocolate and contain chocolate chips. They have an okay taste but it's nothing to write home about. The savoury biscuits that are also included with the ration have the same texture but a better flavour. I also find that these do get terribly stuck in your teeth! There was no way I could eat two packs of these so I wimped out after one. They could be carried easily in a pocket to eat on the move during the day though.

Sweet biscuit

Finally I washed it all down with a cup of mint tea....very refreshing. Nice mint flavour. I do slightly wonder if there are really enough esbit tablets here to heat water for the huge number of drinks in the RCIR? I've never actually tried to heat the whole lot that way.

Mint tea

All in all...a very acceptable breakfast. I was really full....and there were plenty more biscuits if I had still been hungry!

[housil]

Nice pic´s and review. Thx for sharing.
No creamer?! How do they/I have my cafe au lait??

[rattattoo]

I wonder what it is with the breads and biscuits. You would think that they would be something that would actually be pretty easy to get right in a ration, but they seem to be the low spot quite internationally.
I guess it probably has to do with having them sturdy enough to survive the "drop test" without crushing into crumbs.
Over here in the states, we have a product called "Boboli" that is a kind of lavash/flatbread. However, it is much thicker than lavash or tortillas. It's much more like Pizza. In fact, that is what I believe most people use it for. Sort of a no -bake crust that you load up with your toppings and then pop in the oven. It comes sealed in a nonrefrigerated, shelflife package and I can even buy it at the dollar store. It stays fairly soft, maybe not for the 3 to 7 year shelf life of an MRE, but it seems like it would be a decent starting place. And it's way, way better than the US issue snack breads. In some kind of long-life packaging I would think it would work.
This would seem like a better alternative, especially since the reviews from the guys in the field seemed to say they'd really like to have something like pizza included.

[housil]

Their biscuits seems to be like our (German EPa) crackers. They are called "armour sheets" because they are this hard and solid - but that´s the difference. They are no crackers, they are biscuits.

Over here, in Europa a "cracker" is a thin(er), crispy, salty thing. Like the MRE crackers (or the "Ritz").
A "biscuit" is a thicker, sweet, solid thing.

I guess it probably has to do with having them sturdy enough to survive the "drop test" without crushing into crumbs

Usually the French don´t have a real breakfast like we know "continental breakfast". All they have a huge (salad) bowl with (milk) coffee and e.g. a croissant. That´s it.
So the breakfast out of the RICR is the coffee and the sweet biscuits.

[Bypah]

Here in the US the terms are different....

a biscuit

crackers....

graham crackers are sweet.

grahamcrackers.jpg (6.55 KiB) Viewed 9700 times

cookies...

[Bypah]

A typical american breakfast is....eggs, bacon, sausages, hashbrowns, toast or biscuit and gravy and a full stack of pancakes.

american-breakfast.jpg (10.5 KiB) Viewed 9700 times

there is never too much bacon....

vs the simplicity of european continental breakfast.

[rattattoo]

To follow up on Bypah's post---
As he indicates in the next to last photograph, Americans can, will, [and often have to] defend their bacon. With a continental breakfast, the situation is much less likely to arise.

Thank you too for the wonderful and instructive illustrations of our American usages.
Now can one of the Brits on the forum please return the favor and explain to me WTH a "digestive biscuit" is? I have visions of an Oreo cookie with a Pepto-Bismol center... and while you're at it, what's the "charcoal biscuit"?

[housil]

Bypah, I can reassure you.

This:

isn´t a real continental breakfast. This is what you get in the US if do you order one in lack of real bread - we have 600 different kinds of bread - also a huge amount of crisp rools. Also there is no pate, no cheese, no sliced sausage

This is, how a real continental breakfast looks ever morning on our table

...and at least, we don´t have bagels over here


But I like to see the different eating cultures even in military rations and I really enjoy the variety. Too bad there isn´t a real breakfast MRE with any eggs, bacon, cereals etc. like e.g. Heater Meals have:

[Name_not_found]

It used to be (and still is for some) a large breakfast was your fuel for a day of hard work on the farm.

You needed all that to keep going, lunch was a simple snack maybe a sandwich and then a good sized supper/dinner.

Most "continental" breakfasts i see in the states are offered in hotels and its usually just a small buffet with muffins biscuits cereal fruit and juices coffee milk. Of course if your somewhere fancy they may have eggs and bacon and sausage.

Nothing beats a good southern breakfast though

[rationtin440]

The French RCIR breakfast reminds me of the Spanish ration breakfast with its limited items. I'd be curious how the Spanish breakfast crackers compare with the french RCIR biscuit as to carbs and other essentials.