Soldier talking Cover and Firing his M1 Garand

[Bob Womack]

Did you ever notice how your appetite changed when you were out doing strenuous stuff? I mean, after humping a 60 lb. pack up a mountain all day my tastes changed entirely. The body just seems to adapt to its own needs and present you with a different taste to supply its needs. I'd be cramming carbs all day but at the end of the day I needed protein. When backpacking and climbing I used to carry a Coghlan's squeeze tube loaded with peanut butter. I'd directly inject peanut butter at breaks during the day.



I remember one time hiking into an Appalachian Trail on the first night of an expedition with a frozen thin steak in my pack. It thawed by supper time and I fried it up. NOTHING ever matched it for hitting the spot at the end of a trail march. Now, it just about got me lynched by the AT through-hikers who had been living off reconstituted blech for months. I'm not sure I remember seeing anyone who looked that ready to dispatch me again in my life.

Bob

[browningautorifle]

The body just seems to adapt to its own needs

I must admit I ate most everything in the ration packs regardless...

[Paul S.]

We sometimes had US C rations in Vietnam. The two best cold - no fires in the bush - were the chopped ham and eggs and the ham and lima beans.

Then there was the Irish stew or curried sausages in our 'rat packs'. My wife nearly threw up when I got up one morning after coming home, went to the kitchen, got a tin of Tom Piper's Irish Stew, a spoon and a can opener, came back to bed spooning cold tinned stew into my gob.

[Sentryduty]

My wife wanted to try one of our rations (IMP - Individual Meal Packet) some years ago, so I nabbed a one from stores. Not wanting to be an a-hole about it I chose one of the "good" ones - Chicken Breast in Brown Gravy, no surprises here its literally a boneless, skinless, chicken breast in a thin brown sauce, vacuum sealed in a foil bag, something any troop playing ration lottery in the field would be happy to get.

So these IMP's are dead easy, you throw the foil bag into a pot of boiling water and pull it out when it puffs up, about 5 minutes.

Cooking went fine, I fished out the bag and cut it open along the long edge as is the custom, and offered it to her. As soon as that bag got within 3 feet of her nose there was a choking gag noise and flat refusal to even consider eating it.

Explain as I might she would not even try a teaspoon of the gravy and made me dispose of it outdoors.

So much for her seeing what rations taste like...

They did have a somewhat distinctive smell though...

One time in the company lines around lunch, all we could smell was hot rations wafting through. Who the F- was cooking rations!?
A bunch of us investigated and found the microwave stinking of Ration Beef Stroganoff,

You see, we had one guy, not the best sort with finances and girls so to speak, and because he didn't have money for lunch, he'd been appropriating IMP's and repacking them in reusable civilian food containers trying to pass them off as packed from home.

I suppose it wasn't as bad as our EME Vehicle Techs, there was one their fellows that took it to another level. He was too cheap to pay rent and had taken up residence with a cot in one of the building mechanical rooms each night. He pulled the scam off for several months before the duty Sergeant finally caught him one night. EME guys made a trophy from a beat up old washbasin to commemorate him, the Master Corporal ------- Dirtbag Award.

[Bob Seijas]

I learned to eat liver in the Army... came in from the range one day and was craning my neck in the line to see what was being served -- steak! Oh man! But when I got up to the counter, it wasn't steak, it was liver. I turned it down, had the mashed potatoes and green beans only. That night in the barracks I was so hungry I considered eating my belt, vowed to eat anything they served from then on. The next time they had liver I took it and loaded it with ketchup, got it down. The Army likes liver, it must be cheap, so I got the chance a couple more times... and got to like it. Now I order it at our favorite restaurant... but ask the waiter to bring me some ketchup on the side

[browningautorifle]

I was a farmer as a kid so I already had the bulge on some of the guys that were too well fed, but I found the cooks less than stellar and formed many opinions about new experience foods they served. Now in later years I have to re-educate myself about some of these things...except for mutton. Can't stand the smell. Fortunately they only served that regularly overseas. Sheep and mutton and goat...

[TDH]

Never the ham and Lima's even Charlie wouldn't eat that s****tuff

[MJ1]

We would trade or steel LRRRP's or LRP rations the first freeze dried rations in 1967. I had an in with some LRP guys to trade for a product call shake a pudding. I liked the PB&J with crackers.

[browningautorifle]

LRP rations the first freeze dried rations

I still have a quantity of those downstairs. Most dated 1980 or about that...

[Sentryduty]

product call shake a pudding

A similar product was available in Canadian IMP's during my time, but I cannot recall which menu's it would be found in. Supper menus if I were to guess, Lunches came with a candy bar and Breakfasts were generally full of grease and disappointment.

The shake-a-pudding was not awful I recall, it relied on having the proper amount of water and patience to stir all of the mix properly, otherwise getting a mouthful of dried powder was common.