1990 Corned Beef Hash (Menu No. 2)

[SentientTootsieRoll]

This morning I decided to dig into a case of circa 1990 MREs and took this one for lunch. It's Menu No. 2, Corned Beef Hash produced by Sopakco (or "SO-PAK-CO, INC." as they stylized it back then). I've had this MRE a few times before (from different years) and really enjoyed it. It's one that I've never seen go bad.

Contents:
- Corned Beef Hash
- Peaches (produced by Wornick Family Foods, oddly enough)
- Cocoa Beverage Powder Type 1
- Grape Jelly
- Beverage Base Powder, Grape
- Crackers
- Oatmeal Cookie Bar
- Accessory Packet B

Accessory Packet B Contents:
- Taster's Choice Coffee
- Non-Dairy Creamer
- Domino Sugar
- wet-nap Moist Towlette
- Iodized Salt
- Matches
- Tufco branded Toilet Paper
- Gum
- Tabasco Sauce

A quick look at the Corned Beef Hash retort pouch:

A look at the coffee, cocoa and grape beverage prior to adding water:

And the entire MRE, fully prepared in all of its glory:

Woohoo! The corned beef hash was pretty good, it had a lot of subtle flavors and was really enjoyable. I will say that it did leave a slight sour aftertaste but I've noticed that a lot with these old MREs, best we eat and document them now before they all get to that point. I decided to cheat and use a 2014 FRH to heat it up, and that did little justice no thanks at all to quality control issues with modern day FRHs. Adding salt didn't do much either. It was lukewarm at best, but that was the best I could do since I didn't have access to boiling water. I was still pretty happy with how it tasted nonetheless!

The crackers had such a natural wheat taste to them, and it's more noticeable when they are golden and a bit overbaked. These ones weren't but they still tasted better than current production MRE crackers. The grape jelly also brought the flavors alive. I decided to coat one cracker in jelly and eat the other plain. That's the way to enjoy the best of both worlds.

I finished everything off with the oatmeal cookie and the freeze dried fruit. Need I say more? Both were equally scrumptious. I had no idea Wornick also made the freeze dried fruit, all the ones I've seen were produced by Oregon Freeze Dry. I also noticed that it was a bit smaller than the OFD ones, but that wasn't enough to stop me from enjoying it.

The drinks were also really enjoyable. One thing I do like about the old MREs over the new ones are the selection and amount of drinks they provided you with. It seems like just about every MRE came with a cold beverage and cocoa. What a great combination! All were in great condition and none of it was solidified or dry molded, including the Taster's Choice coffee.

That's about all I've got! Hopefully you found this review enjoyable or at the very least, somewhat informative.

[parafireboy]

Great review! Wow, yet another one that stood the test of time well. Those old oatmeal bars are incredible!

[sourwes]

Great review, thanks for sharing! I always enjoy the old brown bag ration reviews. It's great to see how well(or not!) that they've held up. My personal experience has been MREs under 15 yrs are usually mostly ok. But I really try to avoid anything 15+ years