Lunch by the River RCIR Menu No 8

[Yowie]

Hi all, It has been a fair while since I have posted here, but I have been around lurking. I have also been eating a fair few rations about the place. All the reviews will be posted soon .
For the last year I have been on an extended roadtrip slowly exploring this vast country.
Long story short, I got sick of what I had been doing for years, so I packed up my stuff, gave a heap of useless clutter to the Salvation Army, rented my unit, bought a Camper Trailer and hit the road.
It has been great. Currently I am in the Riverina in Southern NSW picking Oranges and driving forklifts.Lately when I get some time off I head to the local river for some peace and quiet, and some lunch.
This one was done over two days, one main meal each day with extra's.

The box, I do like the RCIR design. A couple of years out of date, but no bulges or bad smells

Today's lunch will be Salt Pork with Lentils, Dark chocolate and Prunes (just to get things moving) :)

The pork is on the trusty French army cooker (one of the finest accesories to come in a ration pack IMHO )
This is the Murrumbidgee river , one of the longest in Australia (Only the Murray-Darling is longer) and like the Murray was first dicovered by European settlers while it was in flood. Being in flood they thought it would be a great place to settle and grow everything from Oranges and Grapes, to Rice and Cotton.

Not a bad place for lunch. Notice the extravagant jetty.

Looking the other way. Very peaceful here.

The problem is when not in flood it is not much more than a large stream (about 4 years out of 5)

There are fish out there. Maybe next time I will throw in a line.....

I am not much of a fisherman, and considering the only one you van keep are the Carp and Catfish maybe i will leave them alone. On a side note you may have heard about "Carpagedon". The Government in its wisdom are going to introduce a form of Herpes (thats right Herpes) to wipe out the European Carp the have decimated the local fish since they were introduced awhile ago. We will have to wait and see how that goes, but I think I will stay out of the water for the next few weeks.

Lunch is cooked.

Smells good, lots of lentils and visible carrots

Large pieces of pork too. Sorry its not a genuine MRE spoon :( (Why do the French not provide utensiles?)

I added some pepper to the meal, and ate. All in all it was pretty good, a little bland perhaps. Probably didnt need Tabasco but a little Worchestershire sauce would have perked it up a bit. The pork was great, good texture and plenty of it. Maybe the prunes were in this pack as an accompaniment? Sort of like porco pruno? I thought about that after I had eaten everything though .

Like a lot of older Ration chocolate, it has gone whiteish.

Still tasted good though. I still can't work out when this happens, my oldest CR1M (see my first review) chocolate was perfect, the next one which was still in date, was in worse condition than this one????

Prunes

The prunes were unsurprisingly prunes, they were very good, no funny taste.
I am running out of time at the Library (you would not believe how bad Internet connections are in Australia once you are out of a city, but at least its free ) so next time will be the other main meal.
By the way if anyone wants to follow my non-ration adventures I am on Instagram as notquitelivininmycar

Yowie

[[ex-Member1]]

Great review and nature, thanks for the review and additional info about Australian life. I had that chocolate few times. I must addmit I find Australia very beautiful country but I'm scared sh*less of it. First thing I was looking on your photos of the river was snakes and various spiders

BTW French Army uses Bivouac knife for eating. I didn't watched this video I'm linking below because I have used it and never liked it. It's great to have all that in small package and the knife was sharp, really sharp, but fork and spoon are too small for my taste.

[housil]

Thank you for your review and the scenic pictures!

[BlackDogBob]

Awesome review brother

[MREHungary]

Thanks for the review.

Yesterday I reviewed an RCIR Menu 1 (video coming) with ostrich meat and it was delightful. But before that I got another ration (I cannot remember which menu it was) but it had a BBD of 2014 (came as a "gift"). Unfortunately I had to discard almost the whole meal, just the canned goods were still good.

The biscuit went stale, it had a very unpleasant smell; the chocolate was good, but the other desserts went bad; it was all-in-all a disaster Maybe it was stored with wrong conditions. Nevertheless the canned main entrée (some pasta with turkey and shrimps) and the Mexican salad was still OK and very tasty, the mackerels in tomato sauce were the best fish product I ever had.

So I had bad and good experience with the RCIR rations

[kman]

Great review, Yowie. Good to see you back on the forums! I especially like the pics of the local scenery - they give us a feel for the place.

[Name_not_found]

Excellent review and great pics as always

Glad your back Yowie

[elandil]

Great review. I've seen that bloom happen a lot, it mostly has to do with heat. So storage, temps, and actual product location can make the bloom vary from bag to bag.

Love the local pics, they are a nice change from the local views.

BTW French Army uses Bivouac knife for eating. I didn't watched this video I'm linking below because I have used it and never liked it. It's great to have all that in small package and the knife was sharp, really sharp, but fork and spoon are too small for my taste.

I have one of those that has been in some of my vids. The fork and spoon are small, but it's better than nothing but a knife blade. I actually like it, it is great for stirring, mixing, etc. and fits in a canteen cup perfectly.

[Ruleryak]

Hey welcome back and thanks for sharing Yowie

MREHungary - Did I read that right? Is there an Ostrich meat RCIR?

[MREHungary]

Hey welcome back and thanks for sharing Yowie

MREHungary - Did I read that right? Is there an Ostrich meat RCIR?

So a little sneak peak into the future... Yes, there is one with ostrich meat. Here a picture about the whole RCIR:

I have very sick skills in MS Paint, so you are welcome with the red rectangle And here a picture about the meal itself:

The French writing translates to "ostrich with cranberry sauce"