The MRE sandwich 2: Back in the Habit
This time, I made a shitty cheeseburger
Good evening, meatbags!
It’s Friday. I’m sitting around on my night off, eating garbage and writing about it. You, on the other hand, are probably out doing something really fun, getting drunk and falling down a flight of stairs, or watching a cool movie or TV show with your junk out on the couch.
You’re probably going to see this post and forget about it, or you’re going to see this post and dump it directly in the trash. Either way, we’re all winners.
Last week, I recreated a fan-favorite McDonald’s sandwich with an Army ration kit. But during my initial reconnaissance mission to the Army surplus store, I ended up bringing back another meal kit for intel purposes. Now that I have eaten a few Army rations, I am qualified to say words like “reconnaissance” and “intel.”
Also, I have played Call of Duty a bunch and am very good at shooting at bad guys.
Here is General Scat, watching out for potential enemies in the apartment.
I had a lot of questions when I saw this kit. These kits don’t come with much of a package description; there’s only a vague entrée name. So, since I am basically a child with no self-control, I bought this one with glee, basically hoping this one contained rat poison or something.
Check out this really blurry picture I took!
The haul included: The mysterious beef patty with jalapeño pepper jack, fruit cobbler, an oatmeal cookie, bread, cheese spread with bacon, mustard, a fruit punch packet, coffee, and peanuts.
I am still very impressed at how much shit you can stuff into these little bags.
I did some general calculations and discovered that there are approximately 12,254,395,555 calories in one kit, because when you are in combat, it is extremely important that you are so full that you can only roll down a hill in severe discomfort.
Out of all of the package components, I was very happy to see cheese spread with bacon. I love processed cheese food products. I’d gleefully fill up a diaper with cheese sauce, cinch it up with plastic wrap, and marinate in it all day, given the chance. If enough of you become paid subscribers, I swear to God, I’ll make it happen.
Before we get to the weird patty situation, let’s revisit the Santa Fe rice and beans I didn’t get to try last week.
If you’re Rambo and you want a hot meal, you can just shoot your ration kit with a machine gun a bunch of times to heat it up. Too bad I forgot my machine gun in an Uber ride, so that wasn’t an option. I just ate the shit straight from the bag.
MRE Santa Fe rice and beans are pretty good!
Picture canned vegetarian chili mixed with rice, then run over by a dump truck to achieve maximum density. The aftertaste is somewhat bitter because of all of the preservatives. This may actually be what a mummy tastes like.
The simulated bread in these kits is shaped like a slice of sandwich bread, which is strangely endearing.
By itself, the bread tastes like sweet and flaky hardtack.
I have never eaten hardtack, but I have seen maybe one or two Civil War movies, so that instantly makes me an expert at hardtack. I am an expert in a lot of things. I am mainly an expert in making shit up, which is why I’m such a talented food writer.
I promptly fucked up using the MRE chemical food heater, which meant I had to eat this extremely smoky smelling meat rectangle at approximately body temperature.
Another cool Army trick is to hold an MRE packet between your buttcheeks all day to make sure it’s warm for later.
This meat rectangle looked lonely naked, so I put some bacon-flavored cheese spread on it, in the beautiful shape of a big fat turd.
For the record, MRE cheese spread is awesome. It tastes like the cheese you get in Handi Snacks, except without that cool little red plastic trowel. And it has actual bacon in it. Also, it doubles as salve for combat injuries.
The packet of mustard was a nice little touch.
The reason why I’m not a food stylist is because I’m actually too good at the job.
General Scat surveyed the finished cheeseburger, eyeing it suspiciously.
She deemed that it was only a mild threat and gave me clearance to shove the whole thing up my ass.
This battlefield burger was extremely baffling.
My eyes said, “This should taste sort of like, maybe, a cheeseburger, if you’re lucky.”
Then my mouth said, “I do not identify any of these flavors or textures as being food.”
I’ve never had any meat product with this texture. It has a very fine grain, and is very dense; it crumbles and doesn’t have any sponginess to it. The patty isn’t particularly moist, but it’s not quite dry, either.
The flavor is acridly smoky to the point where it’s almost at the point of burnt rubber. Surprisingly, the jalapeño is genuinely spicy, but if there’s pepper jack in there, I have no idea. You can’t even taste the mustard. What the fuck just happened.
This is my Friday night.
War is hell.
So is food.
Hope you’re all having a fun Friday night with your junk out on the couch. What’ll make it even more fun is if you share this shit on social media for me, Dannis Ree.
And, psst. Subscriptions are $5/month and $50/year.