Recipies from the Army Rangers

Howard Wallace

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I saw this on another board.

It was so touching it made me cry. I figured you guys would appreciate the recipies.

I'll have to edit out some of the colorful language.


ARMY RANGER DATE

I had a date the other night at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to "Cook her something she's never had before" for dinner. After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINITELY never eaten. I got out my trusty case of MRE's. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here's what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of dehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/re hydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, sautéed in shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow &@@&. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like Velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it's got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy right?)

For dessert, I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed 'em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it. Voila--Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named "Military Special"--it sells for $4.35 per fifth) and mixed in four packets of "Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored" (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess... could've been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that $#!^ is *&^%ing EXPENSIVE... my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said "This looks INCREDIBLE!!!"

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the makeshift "wine" I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the "Chocolate mousse" I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay... yeah... it's Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make... yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself "uh oh" and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The Army even makes smell-good) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time. I could hear her say "What the #*!! is WRONG with me???," as she again send flatulent shock waves into the porcelain bowl.

This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn't come out for 30 minutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn't want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks.

She came out with a slightly gray pallor to her face, and said "I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can't believe I keep running to your bathroom!!" I gave her an Imodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can.

After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of "Army food" she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said "I ate 9,000 calories of dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?" After I concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word.

She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn't $#!^ for 3 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad, her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she'd ever &#!^ped in a guy's house on a date. She'd been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I'm an @$$hole, but it was still a funny night.
 
oh god that was funny.
i knew it was coming, too.
Oh man, Im crying...
MRE gas is terrible and painful and man, sometimes, you CANT fart, and then people want you to hit the dirt and shoot a rifle?
BS.
Stab me in the guts, let it out!!!!!
 
Yeah. If she ate that "casserole" and took Imodium, she'll have no use for TP for a while... The only part that sounds far-fetched is where she's LIKING the food...

MRE leftovers fill my pantry & office drawer. You eat the "good" stuff first, like the "crackers" with the "velveeta with jalapeno bits", but then you're left with instant coffee, sugar, lil' Tabasco, Tootsie roll, matches, TP. I had 2 strawberry shake mixes, and like a fool, tried one the other day. At least 1,000 calories, followed instructions and got a lumpy, nasty cramp-inducing pink pepto-vomit looking.... shake.

Funny thing is, you don't want to throw these things out. You might need a match. Somebody might want a cup of coffee. Some of them even had fake "Combos" pretzel snacks, and Skittles candy. Those disappeared. It's a common practive to rifle thru the MRE's, taking the good stuff, leaving the food.

I can confirm MRE's contain constipating and anti-libido agents.

"Government doesn't want you to go the bathroom. Government doesn't want you getting all worked up." Air Force officer told me that.

I can only hope the moslem MRE's we're feeding these guys in Guantanamo and elsewhere contain even worse drugs, and taste worse, if possible.


Ad Astra :( :footinmou :barf: :eek: :mad: :(

you're happy to get MRE's when your city has been reduced to wreckage and you have nothing to eat, but "happy" is a relative term at that point.
 
I have been a riot nerd much of my life. I prepared for nuclear holocaust and invading Reds, bureaucracy gone mad, and rampaging rogue Federal agents.

What this means, among other things, is that I used to have some MREs stored. After I did a couple years in the Army, I had some MREs. They were depleted or given away.

And now I have none. I will say, the one worthwhile thing is the drink mix. Once you find the right proportion, just add water and vodka. Chill, and viola. Rehydrate while you dehydrate. Drink a gallon of water before you go to sleep, and you'll be okay to lead the squad run the next day.

John, recovering riot nerd. Also now a fan of bolt-action rifles and Smith and Wesson revolvers.
 
We coined a brand new word back in the day, "Hudge", as in (after a week in the field, you're plan to wait two more days for porcelain have fallen through and it's now time to dig a hole and take care of bidness), "Be back in a few, I gotta hudge.". The word is onomatopoeic, a few minutes after one leaves the wire, his (or her, MI was gender integrated) team mates would hear "HUUUUUUUUUU-DGEohmygodtheresmoreHUUUUUUUUUUUUU-DGE
pleasegodmakeitstopHUUUUUUU-DGE!"

In other words, 'hudge' is the sound one makes when passing a corncob wrapped in sandpaper. I'm amazed this word hasn't made it into the common lexicon yet ('wedgie' just made the OED), but I'm sure it's time will come.
 
military food seems to be the same all over the world. Bundeswehr´s EPA "Ein-Mann-Packung" is not really funny (and - of course not very tasty). But the crackers (called "Panzerplatten" - tank-armor-plates) are the best firestarters around when you put the army´s shoe-polish between two of them...

Andreas
 
hahahaha, yeah I did that as well. But guess what, once I was so hungry that I even tried to eat one of those crackers ! After that experience, I have only used them for starting fires and never looked back.
 
That was hilarious. My friend Johnny the Marine keeps threatening to bring MREs when we go hiking, I'll stick with the energy bars. They have a similar "hudge" effect but at least I don't have to cook anything. I have one for emergencies in the trunk, I suppose it's better than the Hormel Potted Meat I used to keep in case I ever got snowbound in the car in a Minnesota winter... gnawing a frozen block of potted meat, mmm...
 
I think it was Napoleon who stated that an army marches not on their feet but on their stomachs... Some of the modern armys seem to try to march on their livers instead

I am not too fond of army-food - but follow Prussian Imperial-time General von Clausewitz when "charging" a cold or hot bufett:
1. before the battle reconnaissance is the way to go
2. then attack the places of interrest in three waves and destroy the heavy calibers (i.e. meat balls and dumplings) first (do lot lose time with the soup! the battle could be over (empty bufett) before you return)
3. celebrate the sweet (dessert) victory and leave some of the alcohol for the common soldier...

Andreas
 
Ooooh-kaaaay ... this gullible fellow (that's me, yep) was actually wlling to try MRE before - never tried one in my life ... and now I think I never will :p :D Thanks for the fair warning guys ;)
 
Guys...for a fair comparison...MRE's are *delicious* compared to the earlier C-rations we had.

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Nasty said:
Guys...for a fair comparison...MRE's are *delicious* compared to the earlier C-rations we had.

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What the hell?!?!? Some of those "C" rations were just pretty damned good!!!! :p :D
Especially knowing that most of them were 40 odd years old.:rolleyes: ;) :D
 
Yvsa said:
What the hell?!?!? Some of those "C" rations were just pretty damned good!!!! :p :D
Especially knowing that most of them were 40 odd years old.:rolleyes: ;) :D
Yep, one of the guys i work with threw out a can of chili last nite cause it had expired last year, told him if i could eat 30 yr. old c rations back in the '70's, he coulda ate that chili no problem. these young kids nowadays just don't know the value of food. (i can't believe i just wrote that - my austrian grammaw usta say that to me when i was a younger if'n i didn't eat my greens)

i didn't care much for the granite chunks euphimisticly called cocoa in the rations tho, lost a few canteen cups trying to bust 'em up with a bayonet. had fun collecting them rations tho, they'd airdrop the things to us with mini-chutes & they'd sometimes come apart hitting the trees. luckily no one was shooting at us. the beef stew was interesting.
 
Thanks for the HUGE laugh Howard!! I love it.
Nasty and Yvsa are right. I ate C rats that were made in 1944 when I was in boot camp at PI back in 74. They were OK.
MRE's are great! I always have a couple of cases of them in the cellar for hikes and emergencies. I love the way they taste. Mix the cocoa, coffee, sugar all together and you have a nice after dinner drink.
 
Bah.

When I was doing my field exercise during the end of ITB (Infantry Basic), I mixed, um, something like 4 pacs of cocoa and *18* pacs of instant coffee in my canteen!

:D

It was pretty funny- we weren't allowed to have many sweets during basic, so getting the munchies in the MREs was a big treat for us, and a guy or two even sold a favorite sweet for relatively large amounts of money (~$5 or so)...but when we made it back, all the leftover snacks, the pound cakes and spice cakes, and M&M cookies and spiced apples and everything else we had carefully hoarded those two weeks, all got piled on a bunk at the end of our bay...

and nobody wanted them.

John
 
I remember dumping instant coffee packs under my tongue once or twice when near the end of my rope. I don't recommend this, unless tachycardia is hobby of yours.

Another MRE moment:
We worked in 4-6 person teams up in the Korean mountains doing passive radio collection and direction finding (Bravo did tac jamming, big fun, though a little risky). Since we were usually a god ways from anyone else, hot meals weren't really regular, and occasional treats were pretty welcome. One night the platoon sgt rolled up to our site, checked in, and threw a tray of spice cake at us. We huddled around as I broke out the Gerber mulittool* and went to work on the breifcase-sized can. I'm all happy, gonna get spice cake, weee! and go a little too fast around the second corner. 'SNAP!', and we're playing, 'Who gets the lucky shard of metal in their spice cake' I used to pliers to tear the rest of the top off, and no one really hesitated to get on in there. No one lost a tooth, so it all ended as well as anything that involves 5 hungry people shoveling x-year old cake-in-a-can into there grubby mouths at 11:30 at night can.

Anyone fondly remember the trays of egg loaf and sausage? I didn't think so.

*aka Palm Splitter. So glad they figured out that free blood blisters on one's palm isn't a selling point and finally gapped the handles on those things)
 
C-rats. USAF never did that to us. :)

We used to see card tables piled high with C-rations near the door of our mess hall in Germany. Once a week, I think, the Army guys on our base got C-rations for the day instead of real food. One way to rotate the old stock, I guess. What they wouldn't eat, they shipped over to us if anyone wanted it.

Crackers and peanut butter were the only ones anyone took.

MREs = Meals Refused by Ethiopians.
 
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