Our initial plan was to go to Bakonykúti (do not try to pronounce it), walk ten kilometers (6.2 miles for those imperials), get to Csór (do not try to pronounce this neither) and then take the bus home. If you are interested here is the path what we planned: Link
We arrived after a 35 minute bus ride on our starting point and this little bus station awaited us. My girlfriend had to take some pictures from the village, which was quiet nice and very calm.
It was a very hot day. At first, we thought that we will have a nice weather, some clouds blocked the sun, a mild wind blow in our face, it was actually a very good day to hike. But then the clouds moved away, and the humidity started to grow. We had some rain the day before and combined that with the sunshine it created a very sweaty experience. But we were eager to continue, so we did.
I crushed my head over these pictures to include them in the review or not. But here they are and they are telling a very sad story. In 2015 there was a village day for the people of the neighborhood. One little girl went lost and they found her body here in the stream. She was only three years old... The writing says: she turned here to an angel.
But we had to continue and we found this little guy, who guided us on out path. Actually it was the sign below the snail (a typical hiking sign which is showing the path), but I could swear I heard his or her voice. Maybe it was too hot after all...
I do not know why, but I like this picture. Yes, this is me watching the road ahead of us. If you check my shoes you can see that they are pretty muddy. It was a very large puddle of mud. Almost at the beginning of our hiking. My lucky day!
After this came the hardest part of the hiking, but seeing these pictures it was worth it. We had a very clear day, a mild wind and it was simply beautiful. As we followed a very steep path to get here, we stopped for 20 minutes and just enjoyed the view.
On the last picture you see a mine, but I do not know what resources they dig there for. The other interesting thing on the picture are those three chimneys. Back in the days this region was an industrial center with a booming smelter complex. Today the smelting still continues but with lesser capacity and the chimneys are not needed anymore.
And this was the moment when I began to suspect that we are not on the right path. We checked the map I printed out, but it did not helped. Nevertheless we had a fun time during the hiking and that is what matters. This is the path we followed actually: Link
The ration
But enough of the hiking part for a little time and let us get to business. There are seven variants and this menu was in fact the last one, number 7.
As you can see the ration comes in this brown bag and the Hungarian soldiers tend to call them "The brown bag of Death". After having this field ration, I can understand them a little.
But let us get back to the menu! The bag is made out of a thick plastic and because it is brown, it holds the heat very good. Actually when I left it out on the sun, it was unpleasant to touch it. The letters on the bag are written with a black paint and they are very hard to read, the contrast is too little. But you would not gain nothing if you could read them, because the content is written on the bag only in Hungarian. Actually only the pouched main meal had some English text on it ... because it was manufactured in the UK.
The outer bag has very little information from the content of the ration. The items are listed, but not in details and only one of the main meals is listed on the outside. This is because some years ago only one main meal was in the package, but after a redesign a second (the one with the FRH) meal was introduced, but the bag design stayed the same.
As you can see there on the second picture a tear notch is on the bottom of the outer bag. I did not used it, I used my knife to open the ration.
This is the content of the package. On the first picture you see the main components:
4 x matzah; 2 x liver paté; 2 x meat paté with bacon bits; 1 x cooking stove; 1 x canned mail meal; 1 x Hot Pack pouched main meal; 1 box of matches; 1 stick of Esbit like fuel tablets; and inner bag with the smaller items.
On the second picture you see the content of the smaller bag:
5 x napkins; 5 x boiled candy; 6 x sugar; 1 pouch of instant tee; 1 pouch of tomato soup; 1 pouch of cacao; 2 x salt; 2 x seasoning pack; 1 pouch of gum; dried plums; and dextrose.
Not much, but quiet heavy. I was missing some coffee or tee and some chocolate.
The first stop
We had several stops during the walk, just to enjoy the scenery, to watch the landscape, to hear the birds and the sounds of the wilderness. But after two hours or so we had our first "real" stop and tried out the first elements.
This is the matzah. It is some sort of beard, made out of flour and water. That is it. No salt, no yeast, nothing. Just flour and water. And I must say it tastes like nothing. You notice that you have something in your mouth, you wait for the taste to kick in, but nothing happens. It was very crispy and felt fresh, but it had no flavor at all.
The package contains four of these pouches and each pouch contained five pieces.
The first thing we tried out with the matzah was this liver paté. As you can see it is a commercially available sort of can, it even has a bar code...
It had a suspicious fat layer on the top, those brownish spots on the second picture, but they tasted fine. In fact they were so good, that I almost forgot that I am eating them with the matzah. The paté was minced to a very fine consistency, I liked it very much. It tasted like liver paté does, I felt not too much seasoning in the flavor. I liked it very much!
We heard a very strange noise during this stop. If you check the middle of the picture, you can see two red tractors. They collected some hay bales and moved forward.
The second meat product on our breakfast list was this meat paté with bacon bits. I liked the liver paté better, but my girlfriend liked this more. So we agreed that she can have this and I the other. A great deal...
This had the same brownish fat layer on the top, I think it was too hot for these products. It was meaty, the bacon bits were a pleasant surprise, but it was too salty for me and I missed some spices. It was finely minced and had a very tasty aroma.
We ... I mean I tried the dried plums during the breakfast. My girlfriend do not likes dried plums, which is good for me because I do.
It had a jam like aroma when I opened the pouch and smelled the odor. It was a little sour at the beginning, but after the fourth one this flavor went away and it was just sweet. Very juicy, but did not stuck to my fingers nor teeth. I liked them very much and an extra point for the company because they removed the seeds from the plums.
The next items were the dextrose tablets. I did not liked them.
First of all the packaging was lame. I could not seal it back! I will not eat 3 oz of sugar in the morning, so this should come in a resealable pouch. This little plastic bag was good for nothing.
The tablets themselves were not so good. Here in Hungary dextrose usually has a flavor, most likely lemon or menthol. But this had no flavoring, just the plain, old sugary taste. But even that was very mild... They forgot how to make something sweet.
The last item on our breakfast list was the instant tee with lemon flavor. It was a really large pouch and the content was for 1,5 liters (50 oz) of water. This is absurd! The Hungarian soldier has a flask half that size, but he cannot reseal the pouch to use it later! Luckily we were prepared and we had a large flask for this amount of water.
When I first opened the bag it smelled very bad. I asked for a second opinion, my girlfriend confirmed and told me, next time she believes me if I say bad things about something. But after I intermixed it with the water, the odor went away, it was actually very pleasant. I tasted two distinct flavors when trying the tee: sweet and sour. I cannot explain how, but it was both at the same time.
We could not drink the whole 1.5 liters in one sitting, so I carried it around the whole day. So it went lukewarm and actually it tasted much better. If I would make the tee again, I would have used lukewarm water from the beginning.
During the hiking my girlfriend found this medal. Or insignia. Or award. I do not what this is, but it should be very old with the Red Star and the CCCP label. Soviet Union you know... It was 27 years ago... A little trinket from the past.
So we walked forward and my girlfriend made these pictures. The humidity was very high, I felt myself like in a jungle, there were no shadows and I was sure, we are going in the wrong direction. But we reached a city called Inota, where a very friendly guy helped us where we are and how do we get home. We had to take two buses, but it was worth it.
When we arrived at our home town, we decided that we cannot end the day this way, so we walked to the west side of the city where are two artificial lakes, and where we consumed our lunch. It was a very good decision, if I can praise myself.
Second stop
There are two main dishes in the package and they were a little similar. Meat with some vegetables in a creamy sauce...
The first, hexagon shaped can is turkey meat with peas in a cream sauce. This is the meal which is written on the outside of the outer bag, so this kind of food was in the ration before the redesign. On the second picture you can see the imported entrée which is chicken stew with potatoes. It contained some carrots, peas and onions. This meal was also in a creamy sauce, so basically the two were the same. The Hot Pack entrée had a flameless ration heater.
We used only the FRH to heat up the meals, the cooking stove with the fuel tablets was not required. The FRH contained a little salt water, but the green pouch had a fill line if something happens to the water. It worked very good, created much steam and after 10-12 minutes both meals were heated through.
The heater had one flaw in my opinion: once the green bag is opened, you cannot reseal it. No cardboard box, no sleeve, not even a little duck tape to close it.
I do not know how, but we only made this one picture about the peas and this looks not so appetizing. It was too bland, so I had to use one pouch of salt, but after that I was wonderful. The meat was a little though, but it is just my thing. A very subjective opinion.
I could not tell why the sauce was that lumpy, maybe if I would heated it up on the stove it would be better. We might never know.
The second main entrée was just a little different. I felt the carrots were too mushy, but the potatoes were a little though. The chicken was very juicy and tasted actually good, but the sauce was bland. It was an English meal, and you know what they say about the English kitchen ... this tasted just like that.
I ate the peas, my girlfriend a chicken stew and we saved one matzah for lunch. I went full Gundog on the peas with the crunchy bits of matzah, and it was very good.
These two packages are the seasoning packs. I do not like them. Here in Hungary there is a very famous brand and this tastes just like that. It is just some colored salt with some freeze dried vegetables. And I do not understand why they are in the package, because...
...because the ration contains two little pouches of salt. The seasoning packs have basically the same purpose, but they contain sugar and God knows what too. But salt is salt, we used both pouches, the meals were better with them.
The plastic bag contained six pouches of sugar, each was 5 grams (0.2 oz). And I had nothing to use them. No coffee, no tee, the cocoa was already sweet enough, the instant tee too, so I cannot explain why the ration has them at all. Mystery!
After the main meals we tried out the gum. The pouch contains 10 rather larger gums and they had a very strong smell to them. But the flavor was mild. This pouch should be resealable too.
Last, but not least I had a boiled candy. They melted away in the heat, so I did not bothered to make a picture of them. Actually these are commercially available and taste very good. My favorite is the apple flavored.
My girlfriend made some very good pictures, I like them very much and then we went home. We planned to have the hot beverages on the shore of the lakes, but it was just too hot and I was not in the mood for a soup or a cacao.
Third stop, at home
So we went home, took a shower, got some well deserved rest and then we tried the two hot beverages. First on the list the tomato soup. It was an instant type soup, with lots of freeze dried vegetables and it had beetroot. The color comes from that.
First it was promising, because it intermixed very good with the hot water, but when I smelled it, I got suspicious. And the taste decided that it will land in the sink. I cannot define the flavor, but it was not tomato. It was very bad.
The cacao was not too bad. The only thing I missed from it was the milk powder. It was good, but too watery and not creamy. The powder intermixed badly with the hot water. It created a very small amount of cacao in the end, only 1.5 dl (5 oz) of hot beverage.
These last pictures are showing the cooking stove, the matches and the fuel tablets.
Final thoughts
PRO:
+ The main meals were actually good after we used some salt.
+ The ration heater worked very good.
+ The instant tee was good, but I would put two smaller pouches in the ration instead of the one large package. Maybe a different flavor too.
+ The dried plums were the best thing in the ration IMHO.
CON:
- The sugar. Six pouches of sugar. Why?
- The seasoning packs are not required.
- No chocolate. Instead of the boiled candy I would put some chocolate to the ration.
- No coffee or tee (the instant tee does not counts as a tee).
- The outer bag is too thick and too dark. The items could melt in them very easily.
- The tomato soup. Worst thing ever!
We got a little lost, but that is not the point. We had a great time, we saw some beautiful landscape and the Hungarian ration proved that it has some conceptual errors, but all-in-all it is good for the soldiers.
Thanks for the reading. Bye!
