French Onion Soup UK Ration

[housil]

I had a 2001 UK ORP "French Onion Soup" for lunch

After 9 years...

the powdered soup became a solid block again, almost impossible to dissolve.

After lots of stiring...

...I got a plate with a brown "sludge" with slushy leftovers and a nasty smell.

It went straight into the

So I had something different

[Cracker]

French onion soup has a pretty dark brühe colour normally, so that isn't that weird. (no clue how to say brühe on english, maybe broth is the right word?). Though this one is very dark, but that might be because of the amount of caramel / other colourants added.

But, if it's a bad smell.. I suppose it went bad. Because it has to smell like baked (not raw) onions instead. And I think we're all very familiar with that smell.

Quite strange in my eyes though, dehydrated onions are not that easy to spoil.. Even raw onions can last 6 months without problems. Add a lot of salt to that, and then freezedry it, and pack it in an controlled atmosphere. That should garanty quite some shelflife in my eyes.

It might be stored in bad conditiosn in the past, because you never know where rations have been in their life, and how they were stored.

A shame though, it seemed to be a nice appetizer. I actually like onion soup alot..

[biscuits brown]

Made in Italy too. I havent seen that before!

Strange just yesterday we ran out of teabags in the house This is very serious.

So I broke open an ORP and took the tea packs out.

Lovely. Not too strong not too weak.

My mother was round. I said, try this tea! Army tea. She looked at me strange (she is 86)

I made the tea. left it with her.

10 minutes later i hear "im not drinking that"

I go in. Looked fine. Well now I think, maybe a little "darker" than usual. I tasted..

It was half tea half chocolate!!! They had somehow managed to mix both powders

[Bypah]

Chocolate tea???
French "oignon pottage" or soup is dark brown and has a strong flavor.
but this one?? looks weird..maybe humidity leaked in the package and caked the powder.

[Stef]

French "oignon pottage" or soup is dark brown and has a trong flavor.

trust me: it's even worst the day after...

[housil]

maybe humidity leaked in the package and caked the powder.

I agree.
As the foil isn´t airproof - just glas is it - humidity moved thrue the (not damaged) bag due to the diffusion the last nine years.

I´m a big fan of Onion Soup (we also have Onion Cake here too), so I´d like to had it.
But as you can see at the fork, it never dissovled realy and had an suspicious smell that urged me not to eat.
I had an oxtail soup before too, that was OK. Just had a bad taste anyways like the chicken soup that came with the ration. That tasted like melted/burned chicken bones

[Bypah]

French "oignon pottage" or soup is dark brown and has a trong flavor.

trust me: it's even worst the day after...

I had a big bowl of it at Montmatre in a chilly evening when I visited Paris back in 89' and I liked it a lot .
They served it to me with a big chunk of cheese inside the bowl and plenty of french hardtack, I mean hard bread....

[biscuits brown]

I really want to try boulliabaise one day

[Bypah]

I really want to try boulliabaise one day

That's a seafood plate.
I rathe have me one big bowl of this....

Cajun Creole seafood gumbo with okra....yuummmm!!!!

"Laissez les bons temps rouler mon frére...."

[biscuits brown]

I bet they are related down the line. Fish stew /soup idea, using local produce, French cultural background, morphs into that.

I would love to try both now

I love fish. There should be more fish in rations IMHO. Only the Norwegian ration looks like its got a couple of interesting fish mains, maybe the RCIR but I havent looked at the latest menus for them.

Fish is well represented in the RCIR secondary mains though. Vive le fish!