I only ate the 90 to 05 MRE's and chicken ala thing was my least favorite. In many ways I preferred the C Rations I ate from 78-82. It seemed to me that the fancier they made the food the less I liked it. My favorite was a ham slice MRE on crackers with cheese and hot sauce. C ration canned apricots were great on a hot day. The potatoes and beef chunks C rat was nasty when cold ( this was before we were issued any way to heat food). I remember that the first C rat I ever ate was cold canned spaghetti. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ciBudwIV0
In the original MRE menus from 1982 up to around Desert Stoem, it was pretty much a toss-up between the frankfurters ("four fickle fingers of death) and the dehydrated pork and beef patties, which was about like trying to chew a brillo pad.
Was in the 70s too, the way I heated up the cans, open the can all the way around except for about 1/4'', leave top down on contents, put in the box and light on fire, it worked pretty good. I liked most of them when heated.
If you're really hungry, it's all good. Lol! Honestly, there's only two or three that I've found edible.
If I remember right, when MREs first came out, they made something like a chicken loaf. If was so dry that without a canteen of water you couldn't swallow it. The worst thing they ever put it C-rations was the fruit cake, it was awful. I think the only time I ever ate one was in Ranger School when I was starving and I just wanted anything in my stomach.
Circa 2003 Iraq the Country Captain Chicken was the worst then. You couldn't give them away. Most of the dark brown bag ones from the 80s sucked everything was dehydrated and didn't reconstitute well .
I think I hated Ham & Chicken loaf even more. It had all the flavor of a glob of wet paper. Not delicious cardboard, either - just plain newsprint.
The dehydrated pork patty was like eating a hockey puck If you could crumble them up and cook them your canteen cup with hot sauce, it was edible. If you couldn't heat them i'd rather be hungry.
One of these would have been real nice with C rations. There are disposable versions made from one piece of stamped sheet metal. Bend 4 tabs down for the legs and 4 tabs up to support a ration can or canteen cup and your are cooking. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmKxsecKiAk
I never had MRE's in my service time, but I cannot imagine anything worse than green eggs and ham that we got in our C-rats.
I was one of the few people who liked those and that was a good thing because I was a chow hound. I was still growing when I joined and I was always hungry.
We always traded, but I never found anyone who liked them. I loved to get the little pack of Kool cigarettes, because the brothers would trade anything for a tiny pack of them.
