Chow Time

Food preparation has come a long way from back during my time in the Army in the early 1970s. Back then, an Infantry unit in the field usually lived on C-rations. Each individual meal contained a canned meat item, a canned fruit, bread or dessert. They also came with a B unit, which was an accessory packet containing cigarettes, matches, chewing gum, toilet paper, coffee, cream, sugar, salt, and a spoon. Each C-ration unit contained approximately 1200 calories, and three meals a day of them gave you 3,600 calories, which was deemed appropriate to keep a soldier fed and functioning.

Some familiar C-ration meals included pork and beans, spaghetti, or ham and lima beans. Some of it was pretty good, and some not so good. Once in a while we got some other stuff, too, although what you received was always questionable. I remember eating a canned chicken that was dated 1945. The damn bird died seven years before I was born!

These days, the American Infantry eats Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) in the field; self-contained, shelf-stable, 1,250-calorie pouches with entrees like chili mac, pizza, and beef ravioli. I don’t know about the cigarettes and toilet paper, but soldiers I have talked to said they are pretty decent.

But you don’t have to join the military to experience MREs. Several companies offer them for the civilian market. One such is Prepared Bee, who contacted me a while back offering to send me a case of their MRE Star complete meals to review. They offer three different varieties, the MRE STAR Military Meal, the Gluten-Free MRE STAR Complete Meal, and the MRE STAR Vegetarian Meal Kit.

I chose the MRE STAR Military Meals, figuring they would be as close to what the Infantry eats these days, to see how they compared to my memory of Vietnam War era C-rations. Each case contains two of six different entrees, including choices like cheese tortellini, pinto bean stew with ham, curry chicken with basmati rice, New Orleans chicken gumbo, and Tuscan beef with Cannellini beans and vegetables. Also included is an accessory pack with salt and pepper, sugar, instant coffee, a cookie, and a fruit drink. Sorry smokers, no cigarettes were included.

I wanted a second and third opinion, so I had son-in-law Kenny take some of them to eat for lunch when he was at work. Kenny really liked the curry chicken and rice and said the oatmeal cookie was one of the best he ever had. He said the flavor was excellent, it wasn’t mushy, and simple to heat with the included flameless heater. Granddaughter Britni opted for the curry chicken, which she did not care for. The cheese tortellini was also very good. I found all of it to be much better than the C-rations I ate as a young soldier.

For hikers, campers, hunters, people who want to be prepared in case of disaster, or anybody who just wants a quick and easy meal, whether at home or in the field, the MREs from Prepared Bee are an option I would not hesitate to recommend. They taste good, they’re nutritious, and each comes with its own self-contained foil pack that doesn’t take up much room at all.

Looking at the Prepared Bee website, I found they also sell all kinds of interesting things, including survival and hunting tools, gas masks, solar generators, and first aid kits. Check them out. Besides MREs, you might find some other goodies you can’t live without.

Congratulations Thomas J Timreck, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother, they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

We had twenty-five entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon! Note: Due to the high cost of shipping printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

Did you know that you can find all of my books and sign up for my free author’s newsletter on my website at www.nickrussellbooks.com?

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – If you want to kill any idea in the world, appoint a committee to study it.