Greetings from England !

[vespa]

Glad you liked the British rations, there's some really good ones and unfortunately some really bad ones, we learned to read the menu list so that we memorised the menu number and occasionaly you get lucky if one is available and ask for that one instead as the boxes can be a mix of menus

As soon as we get the boxes the first thing we do is separate the ones to keep and the ones to swap, we usually form a circle and throw the rations to each other in a swap. We love the little Tabasco bottles There's an even stronger sauce recently in the mix very fiery I believe, I've not tried It yet !

Do the Spanish meal match the ones made at home ? Like Galician stew and Madridlian stew ?

[carlosflar]

The meals are quite close to what you would get at home, at home you are going to get better flavor obviously, with something home made like the Galician and Madrilenian Stew, also the stews are a really flexible recipe, it's not like making a beef wellington, that it is a certain recipe... With the spanish stews everybody makes them their way...
But in general, the spanish entrees are quite good, lentils with chorizo are like the ones I make, the stewed beef in sauce they make it better than me XD, and personally I think it goes a bit unappreciated, but the canned fish is of really good quality... You can see it specialy in the white tuna cans and the mackerel cans... The guys who make the rations started decades ago as a fish conserve factory and they know how to make the good...

[carlosflar]

I've tried the hot diggidy dog sauce, which one is the stronger? , I wish the spanish had too...
Its one of the things the people in the spanish army wonder about, why there aren't some things like hot sauce, flavored drinks or extra snacks in the spanish rations...
I personally think the army should tweak the rations a bit, make them more optimized... Maybe put less pan de galleta (you get 200gr of crackers on the side) and add some energy bars, sugary drinks or snacks...

[vespa]

I think the hot diggidly sauce is probably stronger.

We sometimes pinch small sauce sachets from restaurants to make the food more interesting to eat.

Its interesting that you mentioned flavoured drinks or extra snacks in Spanish rations, it certainly seemed quite substantial perhaps "too heavy" with no snacks in between ?

[carlosflar]

literaly the last thing i talked about with one of the soldiers "nobody likes to run with a stew in their bellies" the food is heavy, probably a smaller portion, less crackers and getting some snacks would be better... But they still have a good opinion of the food, at least the people i know, although they mever miss a chance to trade rations when they meet soldiers from other places

[vespa]

Indeed ! I've heard there is an unofficial exchange rate for rations .
The last I heard is 5x US MREs for 1x RCIR
2x US MREs for 1x British ORP

[carlosflar]

Yeah from when they where in Afghanistan, they always mention how they would trade rations with the US forces, and some particular menus would fetch higher "price" like the one with squid in ink as it's quite an oddity...
But for some reason it seems the US forces always gave more in volume than recieved, I just hope they had spare rations!
On that surely other members who where there can say more!

[vespa]

The US MRE while good enough is clearly lacking in wow factor, I never really found it very substantial, it seems to be "ok" but not quite there, the content will probably last you 8 hours not much more.

[BTemple]

The US MRE while good enough is clearly lacking in wow factor, I never really found it very substantial, it seems to be "ok" but not quite there, the content will probably last you 8 hours not much more.

It's only meant to last for about 8 hours anyway

[vespa]

The US MRE while good enough is clearly lacking in wow factor, I never really found it very substantial, it seems to be "ok" but not quite there, the content will probably last you 8 hours not much more.

It's only meant to last for about 8 hours anyway

You're probably right mate, I haven't seen any 24hr version, I find that quite curious, I will say they do put a quite a bit in the pack, they could make more of it IMO.

I'm looking for the Chicken Fajita version as I believe this is considered the best of all menus, read a few US soldiers comments about it, highly tradeable between troops