So you guys were not lying about having a clear stomach for 24 hr ration reviews, it has been awhile since i had eaten a french 24hr RCIR and the last time i had a couple of hungry soldiers that wanted something besides MRE's to help me polish it off, luckily in this case i had three kids that wanted to try everything as well.
Here we see the RCIR in celyophane and then when opening it everything is neatly in its own place with little room to spare interestingly enough with canned goods being in the box nothing was crushed. I was a bit overwhelmed with the sheer amount of food in the box.
The first thing i noticed that was different is that the crackers now had their own box and a set of four 2 packs for both sweet and salty crackers, meaning that you did not have to use all the crackers at one time you could use what you needed, be it sweet or salty and save the rest in their own box very snazzy much improved.
Here top to bottom of these two photos you see the rasberry jelly bar covered in sugar but not to sweet not tart i liked it, then you have the commando bar with red fruit flavor in french it was like a marshmellow with rice balls with a hint of rasberry flavor again more like a little candy bar, next you have the nougat fruit bar which was about the same a marshmellow with bits of jellied fruit and sugar strips down the sides not bad, next we have the coffee energy bar which was the best bar in the ration it was like a powerbar consistency that flaked off with the mini rice balls the commando bar had the flavor was of a toasted coffee it was super good the kids got small slivers of this to try mainly because i didnt need to have the house lift off to the moon that night.
Here you see the drink accessory packet wrapped in its own packet there were two coffees,sugars, and salt and pepper packets there were only one cocoa packets and 1 packet of green tea of the orient and yellow label tea i will show the color and consistency later in the post
At the bottom of the picture you can see the heating kit and what comes with it a stove, six fuel tablets, a box of matches, six water purification tablets, a foldable spork, a hot can holder, and a black refuse bag
from left to right strawberry jelly on a sugar cracker the crackers were snappy they stayed so even when a little wet not to much of a sweet jelly a natural strawberry jelly, then we have the tuna pate with salt crackers i thought this was excellent you could make a sandwich with the crackers or some spare bread kind of like a tuna salad sans pickles.
then at the bottom there is the dark chocolate bar which melted a little in the heat the only place it turned color was where it had melted i was surprised because it had melted that day after opening the ration the chocolate was not bitter it was very mild for dark and smooth.
here we have my favorite meal of all the french rations its the salmon with rice and vegetables after taking way more matches to start the fuel tablets than this former boy scout is willing to admit i heated up the main meal one tablet does not burn the meal and the heat dispersion of the stove heated the whole meal properly i stirred it up and ate some salt crackers with it
the rice was nice not firm and almost buttery and the salmon was perfect i almost didn't get any because my 3 year old just kept asking for more perfect main meal.
the thing about the drinks is i only did the ones that didnt seem cots (commercial off the shelf)
the peach energy drink wasn't that great it could have been the amount of water i used but it just was kind of blah it did not seem artificial peach it just wasn't great.
the coffee was excellent i sipped on that even into the night i am glad i have more than one i used one sugar packet and there was no creamer/whitener.
the cocoa was also just ok it smelled great but again i might have used to much water or perhaps us americans are used to more sugar the kids got this.
and then there they are all lined up
the chocolate muesli was good again i might have needed to use a little less water but the chocolate in it wasn't to sweet but the muesli was thick enough to keep it all together i enjoyed it for my first muesli
the chicken couscous was good it had a good blend of vegetables chickpeas and diced potatoes with peppers and a sausage that wasn't pork it was ok but didnt hold a candle to the salmon
