This one is for "Beef Enchilada in Sauce", a Menu B MRE. I won another Ebay auction so I'm eating up my current stock so I can provide reviews of it all.
The main components of this menu is:
- Beef Enchilada in Sauce
- Refried Beans
- Salsa
- Jalapeno cheese spread
- Vegetable crackers
- Mint chocolate chip cookie
- Vitamin-fortified powdered orange-flavored drink.
The first thing I tried was, at lunch, the cookie, with some milk. Yumm! But *way* fattening, check out the calories on that thing! (Each MRE is supposed to provide 1300 calories, and the cookie was a lot of them).
At the next meal, I mixed up the orange drink and took a sip of it. Hmm. Vaguely reminiscent of Tang. I heated the Enchilada and Refried Beans pouches in boiling water, then after letting them sit for five minutes to warm up nicely inside.
The first thing I splatted out onto the plate was the "Beef Enchilada in Sauce". Frankly, it didn't look like much -- the handling that this MRE had received had broken up any enchilada into pieces, leaving meat and tortilla sort of mixed into a Chili-Mac-ish looking mix. I topped it with some of the salsa and jalapeno cheese spread, not expecting much, expecting something that tasted vaguely of rancid lard and tomatoes (you have to remember, my iceberg is parked in California at the moment -- lots of real Mexican food).
I then splatted out the refried beans, and similarly topped them with some salsa and cheese. I opened the crackers and put them to the side of the plate, started eating, and ...
Yumm! This is military food?! It had actual flavor! A nice blend of flavor, actually, with enough spices to be interesting, not really spicy hot but still the guys down in the barrio down the street would wolf it down lickity split. This wasn't the icky canned enchilada s*** that you get in Middle America at all! Guess the fact that so much of the military is now Hispanic means that they now know what an enchilada is supposed to taste like (hint: the canned thing in the supermarket ain't it), and forced the military to make an enchilada that actually tasted like real Mexican food.
So once again, I want to compliment the guys at US Soldier Systems Center (Natick, MA) who created the modern MRE after the fiasco of the Gulf War "Meals Refused by Everybody". They have truly done a masterful job, and this penguin gives them two flippers up.
- Badtux the Gustatory Penguin
Note: Still "officially" on hiatus. But will occasionally post recipes or food reviews or such.
Hang in there, Tux, and do what ya gotta do. We'll miss you while you're gone, but we'll be waiting for your return.
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