View Full Version : British army 24 hour ration packs..
EddBamber
17-08-2010, 22:17
I was on a trip with army cadets last week and i found out that the ration packs no longer contained the famous Yorkie bar that read 'Not For Civvies'. It has been replaced with a wierd tasting chocolate bar i have never heard of. :confused:
Has anyone else had the pleasure of cooking with hexi stoves? dear god they are horrible. They are poisonous, smell bad and leave crap on your mess tins.. :togo:
Compo chocolate has always been a bit grim, decent stuff dosn't survive too well in storage or on the way to the desert. Hence what you get is more like chocolate flavour lard then Green and Blacks. At least there's no bromide in the tea anymore.
hexi stoves ?......wonderful things !!
Idiscouverd my new favorite boil in bag the other day, it used to be pasta with meatballs, but holy crikey if chuncky chilly ckicken hasent kicked it out of the park, grrrrrrreat!
EddBamber
17-08-2010, 22:29
Haha i have never smelt a smell quite like those hexi stoves, next time im taking my own.
EddBamber
17-08-2010, 22:32
The meatballs looks great the person who i basha'd with had those he thought they were gross so i finished them for him hehehe..
I had a Chicken tikka masala with rice and sticky toffee pudding it was beutiful..
I had a corned beef hash for breakfast urgggh it waas Naaaaaaasttttyy, i normally love corned beef but ew.
dont do it, you'll grow to love the smell, then when ever you smell it again it'll remind you of your times out side. i for one love the smell of hexi, as for the muck on your mess tin a quick rub in the grass will get rid of it, good times.
hexi smell = food .....LOL
what is a bit of a let down is the mushroon pate, not nice, looks good a grout though, but your bosses office will begin to smell bad!
EddBamber
18-08-2010, 10:14
I enjoyed the mushroom pate, i found a can on the floor after walking round our camp and took it home and ate it with toast :D
We were also told by a sergeant the same as what you said southey about the rubbing mess tins on the ground, works a treat. I ate my oatmeal block and yeast extract while on stag. XD
DUDE! next time you get a pack, one times oat block,one tube of jam mixed fruitsand and grate with your pen knife some of the chocolate substitute bar over the top untill coverd, it tastes fantastic and will have you running around you harbour like mad. your ds will thank me.
EddBamber
18-08-2010, 10:55
DUDE! next time you get a pack, one times oat block,one tube of jam mixed fruitsand and grate with your pen knife some of the chocolate substitute bar over the top untill coverd, it tastes fantastic and will have you running around you harbour like mad. your ds will thank me.
I will do that next time :D thanks man.
Davey569
18-08-2010, 12:06
Well the chocolate now is still better than that horrible stuff we had years ago that came in a blue and white packet IIRC. tasted like powder. yuck!
Hehe the white milk chocolate, That was not supposed to be white.
The Big Lebowski
18-08-2010, 12:12
Hexamine stoves... God, that takes me back to being 12, my old man bringing home a just out of date 10-person 24hr ration pack and camping for the week in Glen Fruin feb/march under a bivi!
We gorged like piggies, and froze our butts off in the nights.
I'm sure if i smelled one now, i would have a cold shudder, but a warm grin :)
This has got me thinking of tins of grilled bacon, cut off the top and bottom push up a bit slice and fry in the messtin, hhhmm!
Davey569
18-08-2010, 12:25
How about some of this? :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkMYmmN9PwA
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh i want some tacticle bacon now!!
I don't know what you are on about, the corned beef hash is lush, especially after a long battle march or when it is wet. I still hate the patrol sweets though, and I am guessign you guts know about biscuits brown and biscuits fruit + what they do?
Oh and the fruit paste in the tube is excellent for baiting snares/ figure 4s
Davey569
18-08-2010, 13:14
I love the tuna, I could eat that stuff all day. And yes I know about the biscuits, shame the other guys on my basic didnt believe me...
Looky here, what this i have?
http://i452.photobucket.com/albums/qq246/pak657/DSCF3183.jpg
Yum Yum!
Davey569
18-08-2010, 13:24
Shall we start the bidding off at say £5? :P
Is that for the person to try and prize it from my cold lifeless hands.:swordfigh:morpheus::cru tch::aargh4::BlueTeamE
Davey569
18-08-2010, 13:43
Thats the one! :D :pokenest:
EddBamber
18-08-2010, 14:05
In my ration pack i got tuna and mayo it was surprisingly good, also whats wrong with those biscuits?
Ohh my jebus where do we buy tactical bacon?!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0DAx85UXB8&feature=related lol.
Oh yes, have you had the princes pate sachet yet,Yum, theres nowt wrong with biscuits brown, either dunked in you morning brew, or crumbled into a pudding good solid fibre,incidently thats what you'll be passing a few days after if you eat the whole packet in one go. there are very few things in rations that i don't like, there was a main in the arctic rations that tasted like sick, but then again it always had the dried rice desert in the same box so ups and downs.now i need to find some of that rice it tasted like baby rice but amazingly sweet, luvely.
Graham_S
18-08-2010, 14:49
Has anyone else had the pleasure of cooking with hexi stoves?
There are quite a few of us on this forum who have spent quite some time in the forces, so yes.
Also,
The smell of hexi burning makes me hungry.
Granted, the first thing most of us did was buy a Coleman Multifuel stove, which we could run on waste aviation fuel (a real bonus on exercise), but the memory endures.
As for ratpack food, I miss making all in stew.
All in stew, a plesure to eat, a bugger to clean.
Everything Mac
18-08-2010, 16:39
Has anyone else had the pleasure of cooking with hexi stoves? dear god they are horrible. They are poisonous, smell bad and leave crap on your mess tins.. :togo:
a good dose of "Man up" will sort that out.
As Graham_S said - many of us have served. - I really miss rat packs myself. Particularly "rocket fuel" as my mate used to call his tea with SIX sugars! lol.
Andy
Graham_S
18-08-2010, 16:52
there is something special about tea from a norgee flask that's been stewing for 4hrs and is about 50% sugar
:D
Soaked to the skin, freezing cold, and covered in mud.
Nothing tastes finer.
It's a good leson to learn, always be first to the urn, if your not you just know the section fezzer will have dipped his mug in, you know the one half his dinner round his chops and someone else has probaobly had to carry his bergan cause of his shin splints. he couldn't figure out the nozle system so just popped the top and dunked his gipping cup leaving a few blades of grass as a warning.
Range day, Babies heads!!
Screeeeeeeeeech........... Or is that just local to us loonies
Everything Mac
18-08-2010, 17:55
:D quite correct Graham.
lol - Screech is the best substance known to man! - shame they replaced it with shiny new stuff :(
mattweasel
18-08-2010, 22:02
Love army ration packs. They remind me of my youth. I also wouldn't go anywhere without my hexi stove.
Didn't army ration packs used to have apple flakes in them? I have a memory of my older brothers bringing them home after being away with the army cadets in the 1970s.
Now your talking apple flakes, rolled oats and chocolate powderYES!
naefearjustbeer
18-08-2010, 22:25
I have fond memories of the apple flakes from my army cadet days. Didnt like the brown biscuits though!
EddBamber
18-08-2010, 23:08
I didnt get apple flakes i got some strange fruit bits, they were good but i cant imagine where they came from ;)
I spose you're all right now whenever i smell hexi i think of food.
Those fruit bits are just like fruit leather, tasty.
EddBamber
19-08-2010, 13:37
Those fruit bits are just like fruit leather, tasty.
Dont we all love leather though?
mattweasel
20-08-2010, 21:18
Glad other people remember the apple flakes, it was such a long time ago I thought I'd made it up in my head.
So many combinations of food, some T.V chefs should have a go at making a cook book.
My brother used to make a stew called an All-in, where you would put everything into one pot, the strange thing is that what ever combination of food in the pack, it would always end up tasting the same.
they we're still kicking about up till 2003 i think, then dropped for something or other, we used to have to have an all in stew during basic at lichfield in 2000, the ds called it para stew, but then they were found of naming stuff like that we had the hill of despare which was a road which ran through a quarry about a mile or so from cam, the road was one side gravel the other tarmac run down the tarmac swap run up the gravel till sick, then carry on till time to go home, the para drop was a circuit road round a lake/resivoir in sherwood forest about three miles, do one loop, with full kit, then dump bergans one the move and two further laps at speed, then there was the hill of remorse at crickhowell, after the night before where we had all been drunk and over familiar with the ds using there first names and stuff, first thing next morning out for a road run find the first big hill and run up and down till sick, then a mix of pressups and kitten crawl to the top shouting all sorts of bartisms, with bemused people holiday driving past gawping. great fun!!
UltimateSurvivor
20-08-2010, 21:49
I survived most of my army career on 24 hr Rat packs and Hexi Stoves. They may be abit primitive but they Work first time every time. When you've been on a 34 mile TAB on a soaking wet October morn'. The heat your hexi stove throws out is a god send. Agreed, The taste can be abit fowl when on hard routine. But to be fair i still loved the stuff.:p
Forces Gear has always been the same, it does exactly what is says on the tin. Corned beef hash used to be my favourite! Infact it's got my stomach growling as we speak!:D:cool:
Tal'.
In America folk can get MRE's why is it so difficult to find them in the UK ?
British Red
27-08-2010, 10:28
It isn't? Theres bleeding stacks of em in Surplus shops etc
Heading to the Hebrides next month for a week with a mixed box of Menu A, C and some of the new veggie ones. I bought 2 boxes of 10 24hr packs from Genuine Army Surplus a while back cost me £100 in total incl delivery. A bargain methinks. BTW I have 7 drinks packs from the boxes I need to get rid of, when I get myself sorted I'll throw them on the trading post.
In America folk can get MRE's why is it so difficult to find them in the UK ?
You can buy them by the case load on eBay. Interestingly, watching a recent YouTube video of a US hiker and he was saying that MREs are getting harder to source in the US
There are 38 different menus now and they are all multi-climate! and still they have not done away with the yeast extract! on the + side, dental chewing gum!
Have you tried the yeast extract from the uk packs? it has a strange cardboard taste to it.
I just can't even smell it, it triggers my gag reflex? Everything else is fine but that...:yuck:
Darkside
27-08-2010, 17:00
Mmmmmmm - Compo sausages with Oatmeal blocks and Screech to wash it down with.:D
By the way - are the ebay prices (including the ridiculous P&P in some cases) justifiable? I ask out of ignorance of what you would expect to pay to feed yourself for a day out and about. I'm not suggesting they aren't - just curious.
looking at the prices they seem to range from about average compared to suplus stores to way over the top, but as to shipping, they are quite heavy, it is a box containing upto three wet meals after all. personally i'd all ways look toward the surplus stores as your more likely to find a better deal on shipping, plus you have a re-dress if the rations you buy arn't the irght kit, some of those ebay adverts are a bit ambiguous.
If on ebay look out for large Union jack on side of box as these are the latest MC. menus. Just looking now I can see some older ones with items missing, they seem a bit pricey? They used to be put together a Vestry Foods in Kent, I am not sure if you can buy directly from there, probably not.
launditch1
27-08-2010, 20:25
Ive never served but i have fond memories of ratpacks and mre's.When i was about 11-12 i bought an mre from an army surplus shop, these were the ones in the dark brown bag(old school).Ate this thing called a 'patty, potato'...made me sick as!Still turns me guts when i think of it.
The first brit ratpack i had was when the food was in tins.Loved the pudding(chocolate?)and apple flakes!
Also went to Reading festival (the year Nirvana played) with some squaddies who brought along a load of packs.After seeing the festival toilets theres definitly an advantage to eating multiple packs of biscuits brown!
Oh, and crushed hexi thrown on a fire is good fun.
If anyone has one of the older complete brit ratpacks(with tins)pm me..
I am still to experience a Rat Pack. been looking for awhile but prices are a hard thing to swollow. none of the surplus stores around have any :-( so internet order will be required.
I ate some French RCIR's this summer and they were delicious and kind of posh in their own sort of way.
Beef in a tomato salad, tuna in a spicy sauce and a pungent cheese spread for the salted crackers.
The main hot meal of Toulouse sausages in lentils was fantastic and had its own mini hexi. cooker.
The pack included plenty of sweets and biscuits and drinks pouches.
I highly recommend them if they can be got, most ebay.fr sellers only post to France métropolitaine.
http://www.mreinfo.com/international/france/french-rcir.html
Happy trails...torc.
I'll second torc on the French meals.
Over the past couple of years I picked up American, Canadian, Australian, British and French rations. While the yanks tend to have the best variety the French by far have the best quality. OK, so their chocolate and coffee are a bit, well to be honest, cr*p, but the mains, crackers, caramel sweets and fruit bars are great. I've bought the French by the case from eBay France. Much cheaper than individual buys.
Darkside
29-08-2010, 10:34
Vestey are still one of the suppliers of Rat Packs and you can buy them new from their site here (http://rations.vesteyfoods.com/ration_packs.asp), they are pricier than Surplus or evil bay, but at least you know that they are complete and in date!
Everything Mac
29-08-2010, 11:24
I bought myself a pack yesterday. - What the hell is this chocolate stuff?? its horrid! bring back the yorkie stuff I say.
Also had an oat bar thing which was pretty good.
anyone brave enough to try the mushroom paste yet??
DON'T DO IT! sorry, I really didn't enjoy the mushroom paste, now chicken and herb? oh yes yes yes.
Everything Mac
29-08-2010, 12:33
the chicken one is ok! - I always liked the beef pate the best - truly amazing on some biscuits brown! :D
I feel very strongly, that as a now member of the full time reserve, there should be a weening off process, where by you are sent one rat pack a week for the first year, then every two weeks, and so on. just to get your fix, I'd be willing to commute some of pension for it. do you think they'd go for it. and once in a while a norgie turns up full of either range stew or snake and pigmy pies!!HHhmm!
I feel very strongly, that as a now member of the full time reserve, there should be a weening off process, where by you are sent one rat pack a week for the first year, then every two weeks, and so on. just to get your fix, I'd be willing to commute some of pension for it. do you think they'd go for it. and once in a while a norgie turns up full of either range stew or snake and pigmy pies!!HHhmm!
I agree. One of the rules of joining the reserves should be that you get fed rat packs instead of the slop from the cook house during training. But with admin being on the ball with their BBQ's, we don't need the rats and end up either bringing them home or binning them (I've been called a skank before now for collecting unwanted rat pack meals after an ex :cool: )
The newer newer ratties are marvellous, better than the old babie's heads, beens and sausages and god awful beef paste you used to get.
The new chocolate is mint, but anything you fill with preservatives to last over 3 years is going to taste funny.
Last weekend while working in stores i came across a box of old 98 rat pack meals! Surplus to requirements they now live in my food box :lmao:
What mob you with Southey?
no sorry, i mean the full time reserve list, as in left the AAC 5 years ago and just signed back onto the list, why not a free £28 which bought me a neck sheath. WINNERS ALL ROUND! i'm currently awaiting an email to say the RAF police are recruiting and i'll be trying to get back in. personally, the biggest mistake i every made was to leave, right choice at the time but a very short sighted decesion.
Everything Mac
29-08-2010, 13:18
I feel very strongly, that as a now member of the full time reserve, there should be a weening off process, where by you are sent one rat pack a week for the first year, then every two weeks, and so on. just to get your fix, I'd be willing to commute some of pension for it. do you think they'd go for it. and once in a while a norgie turns up full of either range stew or snake and pigmy pies!!HHhmm!
I can get a rat pack fix every now and then when I feel rich. though I would happily pay a small fortune for all of the remaining supplies of orange screech. - I loved the stuff so much!!
even the lemon one was pretty good!
I can get a rat pack fix every now and then when I feel rich. though I would happily pay a small fortune for all of the remaining supplies of orange screech. - I loved the stuff so much!!
even the lemon one was pretty good!
Drop me you addy if you want these chap!!
http://i452.photobucket.com/albums/qq246/pak657/DSCF3253.jpg
Bothwell_Craig
29-08-2010, 22:36
I can remember as a kid saving up for three weeks to buy my first hexi stove and the thrill of heading into Glasgow to buy it!
santaman2000
15-01-2011, 05:44
I remember the old MRE menus from when they first switched from c-rats. A lot of guys complained about them so they switched. I actually miss some of the old ones. The real trouble with ALL military rations is if your deployed for an extended period, the menus will get monotonous. Hence the periodic redesign for most countries. It's a distinct advantage if you're near another countries forces because trading eases that a bit. The downside is you might well trade into something you don't recognize.
santaman2000
15-01-2011, 05:53
They used to be easy but when they made commercial resale illegal the real ones came off the market. Now there are loads of civilian versions but the only place you can buy the real issue ons or at the commisary and only active or retired military or their dependents have access to the commissary.
WeThePeoplexfbm
15-01-2011, 08:58
hexi stove are my main stove ^^
Darkside
15-01-2011, 12:30
Drop me you addy if you want these chap!!
http://i452.photobucket.com/albums/qq246/pak657/DSCF3253.jpg
Dave, did Mac take these off you, if not then I will bud if still available.
santaman2000
02-02-2011, 04:17
Remember a trick from the Boy Scouts and wipe a soap bar over the bottom (outside) of your mess tin before cooking and the soot will never stick. I thought the new rat packs had the chem heaters though?