E bay is your friend
 

My darling wife, who might read this, loves to surprise me with her cooking skills. Our garage is full of E Bay spoils.

The American packs are in her opinion slightly better than the British.

Almost all the selections are fantastic, I have a pack of Biscuts Fruit in front of me now.
The little tin of food cat, and biscuits brown are a nice lunch time snack too.

Packets of Instant tea, perfect. The instant soups, perfect too.

6000 cals perhaps over the top.

glf

MREs, Compo all fade into insignificance compared with what the Italians put into their ratpacks.

In addition to some pretty decent grub - probably with the pasta designed by Guigaro - there are two plastic sachets:

The first is a robust red wine
The second a brandy type substance of obscure origin but definitely rather potent.

Screech.
Is this the stuff currently served on the Akrotiri trooper?

USA or UK
 

The UK 'ratpacks' are very much better, the only advantage of the USA ones have is the variety of 'stuff' both meals and in the packs.

Personally, its got to be meat lump and beans, bacon/sausage & beans top scan too, as it the beef stew and dumplings.

MRE = Meal Refusing to exit - errr humm....

Biscuits AB = A*** Blocking

Can't beat the old 'Compo' sausage in my opinion. The big ones that came out of the tins square. A close second were the oatmeal block biscuits.

At JHQ Rheindahlen in the early 70's "time expired" 10-man ration packs were sold for next to nothing by Army Stores at HQ BAOR.

My family and I were very much into camping and they were absolutely brilliant for our camping trips - kids loved the contents, especially KitKats in tins and a very good curry. Sausage and Bacon mix was good too - I still have fond memories.

Like all good things packs were sadly withdrawn from sale as political correctness ruled that as they were past the 'use by' date printed on the box, if anyone should become ill MOD would be responsible - or so I was told. Either way by around 1974/75 packs were no longer sold.

If MRE's are allowed too, then peanut butter is just scrumptious!:)

Is it me, or does anyone else see the irony in the MOD now issuing water bottles and some of the large black water containers with water filters built in, only to then issue lucozade, and other powdered energy drinks which block the filters, and make then useless!

My other half is very unimpressed with the new tea sachets that make 'black tea' and so now hordes all the old style instant white tea one she can find.:ok:

"MREs, Compo all fade into insignificance compared with what the Italians put into their ratpacks"..

Agreed. Bro in-law was in the Italian Army and used to bring home their ration chocolate. About 99% cocoa, it's the best choccie I have ever tasted.

In the sixties the ration packs we had were 'lettered' A to H, some were not very interesting, H turned up seven times out of ten with 'M & V', (mutton and veg) but, I think, it was either B,F or G that was most popular and the most rare.

Standard essential extras, carried by the individual, was a large packet of curry powder, even the M & V became edible when spiced up!

Pilchards in tomato sauce.................fantastic:ok:

During my time with the Mountain/Desert Rescue Team at Sharjah the trick with compo (for that is what we were issued with on exercises) was to dump virtually the entire contents of a 10 man pack into a large pot and add a full tin of curry powder.

.....and by everything I do mean everything - except the toilet paper and matches! (in fact I think that the toilet paper went in on one occasion - just to prove it could be done). The matches were never put in - we needed them to light the farts afterwards. :}

I really hope not. The true original "Screech" is Maltese "Marsovin" wine, mixed 50-50 with lemonade to make it (almost) drinkable. A Rum & Coke was ninepence in the Gladiator Club at Luqa - sixpence for the coke and thruppence for the rum - On Thursdays we'd drink doubles for a bob a glass but by Tuesday we'd be down to Screech. It was truly horrible stuff but at one and thruppence a bottle it was all we could afford by Tuesday. (Pay Parade was always on Thursday).

For me, the best Compo was the mutton and peas; compo sausage would be my second choice. Powdered egg omelettes would be my TART (throw-away-rather-than-eat-it) choice.

;)

For 'SCREECH' do posters not mean 'JUNGLE JUICE' ?

........of Ganjuice, made with desalinated water. :*

Marsovin seems to have been made by fermenting salinated water and vinegar... :rolleyes:

While running the Military Container Service; I was involved in outloading RNVD Botley (where the majority of the UK sourced compo came from); we shipped compo all over the world for all 3 services (and the Ghurka's); it was well worth a visit to see how they put the packs together; some of the recipes were made on site.

So you're to blame for my chronic constipation!

Yep, we (used to) put Movers wherever there would be a likely activity of sufficient importance to generate a blame issue ......... :ok:

Best Combat Rations Ever
 

My favourites of all time were the Argentinian rations that were liberated from one of the iso-containers lying on Stanley race course at the end of the Falklands war. During the first days of peace, these ration boxes found their way over to San Carlos where they were gratefully raided for their contents. Of special interest were, the miniature Argentinian whiskey, pack of cigarettes and best of all tinned steak. This premium meat was perfect when placed in a mess tin to which was added some chopped potato, carrots, onions or even local cabbage and cooked in the oven of a peat-fired stove. Every box also contained a letter from an Argentinian school child addressed to 'an unknown Argentine soldier'. I still have one of these letters and a bottle of combat whiskey. I also have my bottle of Sunday Mirror Task Force Ale that is of course now undrinkable!

Pedro
I