Meal, Ready-to-eat, individual

[Brat]

Years ago I had occasion to tour Basic American Food's potato plant in Idaho. In addition to the usual products they provided potatoes in various forms to the military. The plant test kitchen developed instant string potatoes for submarine crew consumption. I sampled the product, it wasn't half bad.. but then many a sea cook can ruin anything.

For what it is worth.. the employees I met there, from management to laborers, were the best in the west and kept me laughing.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

I keep flats of bottled spring water and some gallons of it in the garage for emergencies. I could also exist here for several weeks on a somewhat eccentric diet of powdered milk, raisins, cereal, licorice, crackers, tins of sardines and tuna, dried apricots, canned garbanzo beans, chocolate and who knows what else in the recesses of the pantry. And there's also the wine and gin and tonic water.
I recall my husband bringing home a couple of MRE's for our school-aged son to see. The kid liked the tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce which my husband told him made the meals almost palatable.

 

[ls99]

Does anyone else recall LRRP (long range recon patrol) rations? They were used in the 60's-70's and were probably considered the forerunner to MREs. Much lighter and "quieter" than Cs. They had a rice and beef meal that I still recall as sweet.

Yep. Noted in my earlier post. (#5). On long excursions a whole lot lighter, one meal day was plenty, no noise, the packaging was easy bury, left no cans 'n stuff which were dead giveaways of US travelers.

Still have one pack.

 

[Nords]

MREs are designed for healthy, active 18 year old men engaging in strenuous activities/warfare every day, not for the average person. I don't recall the calories but if my memory is correct then one MRE meal had more calories than I should have consumed in a couple of days if I didn't want to gain. So, of course that had to be pretty yummy but you pay the price.

They're roughly 1500-2000 calories each, although that varies. The Army calorie-control trick is that in the field you're lucky to get one or two per day. You know, one MRE for each hour of sleep.

When my nephew the Army Ranger was going through Ranger school, MREs were referred to as "Army Weight Watchers". He started at 6'4", 225# and ended up in the 190s after just 12 weeks.

So, if you have access to a pair of Army boots and a rucksack...

Years ago I had occasion to tour Basic American Food's potato plant in Idaho. In addition to the usual products they provided potatoes in various forms to the military. The plant test kitchen developed instant string potatoes for submarine crew consumption. I sampled the product, it wasn't half bad.. but then many a sea cook can ruin anything.

Those are yummy. Frozen food tends to work out pretty well because the submarine freezer is usually at -10 degrees F. It's the refrigerated food that everybody's suspicious of. For example you could "usually" get six weeks out of a head of iceberg lettuce. Seven weeks? Well... how hungry are you? And by eight weeks the remaining "fresh" eggs were plentiful. They'd usually been stored in the torpedo room bilge, which during North Atlantic winters stayed a bit cooler than the refrigerator.

Spouse is still amazed at what I'll eat after it's well into the "extended range" of its refrigerator life. To this day I can remember the smell of fresh oranges coming down the hatch (from over 100 feet away) after a 90-day patrol... over 25 years ago. I also have an equally strong yet opposite repugnant reaction to the smell of three-bean "salad", which is what was usually served beginning in week #7 and going all the way to week #13.

Cooks can volunteer for submarine service (and sub pay) but few do. Submarine galleys are an exercise in extreme deprivation of personal space for 3x meals per day. They also have to do all baking from scratch, including rolls and pastries. In addition the oven regularly rocks, rolls, and takes up/down angles while the engineering department (fondly referred to as "those f'in nukes") are always running drills that deprive the galley of electricity. Suddenly life on an aircraft carrier or shore base doesn't seem so bad after all...

 

[W2R]

They're roughly 1500-2000 calories each, although that varies. The Army calorie-control trick is that in the field you're lucky to get one or two per day. You know, one MRE for each hour of sleep.

Aha! That's the key, then. Civilians here said they were eating three a day, figuring that each was meant to be one of three daily meals, and gosh weren't they delicious and filling. I guess 4500-6000 calories per day is an amount that was too much for many.

When my nephew the Army Ranger was going through Ranger school, MREs were referred to as "Army Weight Watchers". He started at 6'4", 225# and ended up in the 190s after just 12 weeks.

So, if you have access to a pair of Army boots and a rucksack...

Thanks, I think I'll pass!

 

[eytonxav]

The submarine force does that too. But before the food situation got dire enough to break out the MREs, we'd send the Supply Officer and the lead cook out through one of the torpedo tubes...

This made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes

 

[TromboneAl]

I'm crewing on a 3-4 day sailboat race in mid-July, and the six of us will be eating almost nothing but MRE's

This sounds like no sailboat race I know. Foi gras, $$$ wine, truffles, yes, MREs no. Seriously, what gives?

 

[dtbach]

MRE's are a reminder of my brilliance in going Naval Air. Whether on land or sea (ya know on those REALLY BIG ships) we always had 3 hots a day. Even on extended flights the galley would make us sandwiches, chips and a soda for lunch.

But then on one d*mn yearly drill in the Reserves, near the very end of my military career, I got sent to Korea and had to eat the d*mn things for 2 weeks and (Gasp!) sleep in a tent!

I knew then that I had made the right decision to go Naval Air waaaayyy back when. . . .

 

[martyb]

lol....I got a couple weeks straight MRE's too...and it was in Korea as well! Kunsan, 1985, to be exact. MRE's weren't the tasty snacks then that they are now... For some reason, my other two trips to Korea didn't involve MRE's. Don't know why, but I didn't complain.

 

[ls99]

I heard rumors that in the Navy, as long as there is a supply officer around there is always the option of pork chops fillet.

 

[dtbach]

I heard rumors that in the Navy, as long as there is a supply officer around there is always the option of pork chops fillet.

Which Navy are you talking about? Can't be the US Navy as far as I know (unless those darn Supply Officers kept them to themselves )

 

[mickeyd]

Yep. Noted in my earlier post. (#5). On long excursions a whole lot lighter, one meal day was plenty, no noise, the packaging was easy bury, left no cans 'n stuff which were dead giveaways of US travelers.

Still have one pack.

Sorry that I missed your mentiuon of LRRPs. Still have a LRRP? Must be ready for the mess hall museum, if there is one.

 

[Bimmerbill]

I remember the first MREs. Anyone else remember the dehydrated pork and beef patties? They certainly are much better now.

We used to get served all the expired ones in the National Guard. The Army vets would certify them for human consumption. The charms would be a solid mass, and tabasco dried up... Wonder how old they were.

 

[Nords]

I heard rumors that in the Navy, as long as there is a supply officer around there is always the option of pork chops fillet.

Apparently these days "pork chop" is considered a pejorative term by our logistics professionals!

Not my Navy anymore...

 

[HFWR]

Cool! trade a Camel for some gonococci.

Ha

I'm sitting here laughing as I remember all the nicknames we had for the different meals and accessories in the C-rats. None of them can be published on a family friendly website.

For a minute there I thought you were laughing at all the nicknames you had for gonococci...

 

[ls99]

Apparently these days "pork chop" is considered a pejorative term by our logistics professionals!

Not my Navy anymore...

Distinctly recall a conversation over some beers with a USNA grad. who made it to O4, back from War College. Absolutely seething with anger that during graded battle simulation exercises several O5s called him pork chops.

He cut their supply lines, ahem.... several supply ships sunk by enemy subs. Multiple reasons for no aerial resupply possible. The O5s did not plan on or deal effectively with logistics failures. Interesting battle outcome.

 

[Nords]

Absolutely seething with anger that during graded battle simulation exercises several O5s called him pork chops.

Depends on the personality.

Submarine Supply Officers have the "option" of qualifying at the Diving Officer watch. It's always good to have an officer qualified to stand that watch, especially if they're skilled enough at it to do it for battle stations or even be the Ship's Diving Officer. Takes a big load off the rest of the wardroom and the Chief's Quarters. Get the Suppo promoted faster, too. Everybody wins.

But a submarine is just one tour in a career that could include several ships and other commands, so some of them choose to hide down in the Supply shack and chase numbers around all day. They tend to lose the big flick and get labeled "not a team player". Their Supply Corps promotion boards may or may not pay attention to the "damned with faint praise" fitness reports that these guys tend to accumulate.

We had one early 1990s incident on my attack submarine where some other country's submarine (you can guess who) was rumored to be enroute Hawaii. Our job was to scamper out to the northwest a few days' steaming to "greet" them and escort them with our fire control system and intel data-gathering equipment. This is the sort of short-notice operation that steely-eyed killers of the deep fantasize about, and you typically only get the opportunity once or twice a career. Our CO was so excited that... well, let's just say that he was pretty excited.

Of course we were in the middle of an upkeep so we had to slap a bunch of equipment back together and skedaddle. The only nice thing about this sort of scramble was that we could ask the squadron staff to give us just about anything within (very generous) reason. We had a department-head meeting in the wardroom (the kind that the junior officers fear) to "discuss" what needed to happen in the next 24 hours before we got underway.
XO: "Eng, no more screwin' around with your lame engineering excuses, I'm droolin' on the table to go after this guy, this is serious business, whaddya need?"
Eng: "Well, XO, I need the f***in' squadron to get their f***in' assets in my f***in' engineroom to fix all the f***in' gear they broke last f***in' week, but other wise we're f***in' ready." (Engineer Officers have to talk this way or nobody takes them seriously.)
XO: "F***in' noted. Nav?"
Nav: "Um, just some charts and some "special recording gear" for electronic transmissions that we're getting tonight. We'll be ready, XO."
XO: "Weps?"
Weps: "Warshots coming on board tomorrow, extra recording tapes for the sonar system coming onboard tonight, maybe a couple "special riders" to go with us to help with the data. We'll be ready, XO."
XO: "Whew. Excellent. OK, guys, sounds like we'll be ready to go. Oh, I'm sorry, Suppo, did you have anything for us?"
Suppo: "XO, we can't get underway! We don't have any ice cream onboard and the squadron supply staff won't deliver it until next week!!"

Needless to say, he hadn't gotten around to qualifying Diving Officer either...

 

[ls99]

Thanks Nords, needed a laugh.