Title: A Taste of History: 26-Year-Old MRE Tasting Experience

Greetings my lovelies! Hi, it's Emmy. Welcome back! Today, I'll be tasting another MRE, but this time it's a little bit different, because it is very old. This ration dates from 1990, making it one of the oldest MREs that I've had the chance to try. Meal #10: Meatballs with Barbecue Sauce is what you can expect from this twenty-six-year-old ration pack.

As I look at this rations dating back to 1990, it's easy to imagine the excitement and uncertainty that came with consuming food in the military. MREs have been a staple of U.S. soldiers' diets for decades, providing everything they need for a single meal. This particular package has been preserved remarkably well, with its packaging still sealed tight and heavy gauge plastic that feels very similar to modern-day MREs.

One aspect I'm particularly curious about is the technological advancements in terms of what's inside this pack and whether it contains a flameless ration heater or if I need to boil this. To find out, I'll be using boiling water for five to ten minutes. The packaging seems normal but not like anything you'd find today. The newer MREs have been noticed to be peelable, whereas this one looks very well sealed and does not appear to be peel-able.

As I open the package, I see that it comes in its little cardboard box with an accessories pack A which I've been calling a sundries pack. Instead of being in a clear packet, it's in a khaki color. Let's open that real quick. Inside the accessory pack, I find cream substitute; salt; instant coffee; sugar; gum; one tiny spoon (that looks like a children's-sized spoon); chocolate-covered cookie; peanut butter; fruit mix; beverage base powder - grape; and some crackers.

I don't see a ration heater in this pack, which means I'll have to boil it. As everything appears to be in very great condition with nicely shrink-wrapped packaging still intact, there are no leaks, so I'm going to taste this. I just pop this into boiling water for five to ten minutes. While the meatballs are heating up, I'll take a look at some other things that came with this MRE.

As I wait for my meal, I want to give you all a quick tour of what else was inside this particular MRE pack. Let's check out the Instant Coffee Type 1 which leads me to believe that it must be other types as well since there seems to be more than one type available.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings my lovelies! Hi, it's Emmy.Welcome back! Today, I'll be tastinganother MRE, but this time it's a littlebit different, because it is very old.This ration dates from 1990.This is a twenty-six-year-old ration pack;and it is Meal #10: Meatballs with Barbecue Sauce.So this is one of four really old MREs that I'll be tasting.So if you're interested in these look for moreof these tastings in the future; and ifyou're curious about where I found them,I found them on eBay where you find all kinds of great treasures.So there's the MRE. An MRE is a meal-ready-to-eat.It's issued to U.S. soldiers and itcontains everything for a soldier to eatin one meal.This is in excellent condition -- thepackage seems to be nice and sealed andtight. There doesn't seem to be any holes;the plastic feels very heavy gauge; verysimilar to the MREs that you findtoday. Besides the taste, I think what I'mreally curious about is the changes intechnology in terms of what is insidethis, and if it contains a flamelessration heater -- or am I supposed to boilthis? I'm about to find out --Oh, and if you like these kinds ofrational tastings, I shall put theplaylist down below where I've tastedtons of other military rations includinginternational ones as well.OK, so let's go ahead and get started on this.The newer ones, I've noticed, arepeelable: you can open them by peelingthem -- although I always have a hard time.This one looks to be very well sealed; doesn't look at all peel-able.So here it is: oh, look at this: Meatballs with barbecue sauce.Comes in its little cardboard box.It comes with an accessories pack A which I'vebeen calling a sundries pack and insteadof being in a clear packet it is in thiskind of khaki color. Let's open that realquick. Cream substitute; salt; instantcoffe; sugar; gum; one tiny spoon;look at the size of that -- that's like a children's-sizedspoon. Chocolate-covered cookie;some peanut butter; fruit mix;beverage base powder -- grape; and some crackers.So, I don't see a ration heater. I guessI'm supposed to boil this. Yep, here it is.Everything looks to be in very great condition;everything is nicely shrink-wrapped still;There's no leaks, so I'm still going to taste this;and, yes, I'm just going to pop this into someboiling water and let it boil for five to ten minutes.Be right back!So while the meatballs are heating up,I'm going to taste some other things.And....this is Instant Coffee Type 1 which leads meto believe that it must be other types.It says \"dissolve in a third of a canteen cup,which is eight ounces of water.\"Wow! So this is more like Sanka ratherthan being crystals, this is a powder.Coffee!It smells like kind of burnt coffee....Use my tiny spoon -- and I usually have my coffee black,so, let's give that a taste. Cheers!Yeah...It's OK. It tastes like burnt truck stop coffee.But, it's hot, and it'll give you a little bit of energy,so, generally a good thing, I suppose.Let's try these next -- and these are justlabeled \"crackers\". The vacuum seal seemsto be intact, so I'm not concerned aboutthe freshness, and, in fact, I just heard it go \"psst.\"So, two crackers --that's what they look like on the back;two small perforations, so you can break 'em in half.And they're beautiful! I think the holesprobably make them a little less dense.Let's try it with a little bit of peanut butter.So this says its \"fortified\"; and it says\"knead package before opening.\" Brilliant!Right? Because all the oils separate -- so weneed to re-incorporate that back into thepeanut part of the peanut butter.This too has a very nice seal. It doesn't lookat all questionable. Peanut butter and crackers --here we go! Itadakimasu!It tastes fine: the peanut butter tastes just like plainold creamy peanut butter and while thecracker tastes bland, it doesn't taste bad.Actually, in terms of both flavorand texture, it's almost identical to a saltine cracker.Although it doesn't look like it, it'snice and flaky actually; it's not denseand super hard; it's actually crunchy;it tastes flowery and has a little bit of salt in there.Let's mix up our other drink: this isthe beverage base powder in grape.\"Mix it in twelve ounces of water.\"I've got this little mason jar here with twelve ounces of water.The granules on that are quite large....and, indeed, it is purple.Let's stir this up.It's not dissolving as quickly as some of theother drinks I've had. I still see a lot ofsugar in there. I'm gonna set that aside.I think our entree should be ready,so let's grab that.Whoa! This is really hot.It smells like barbecue sauce.So, just looks like meatballs. The meatballs do look kind of dark though.They don't taste off at all.They actually are kind of dry,and very reminiscent of the meatballs that you would findin canned Spaghetti-O's: kind of spongy andhave that kind of strange meat flavor;and they finished with a kind of celerysalt flavor to them. The BBQ sauce isboth sweet and tangy, and a little bit smoky.All right, let's try it on a cracker.It's not bad -- it definitely tastesprocessed; it's not exactly deliciouseither, but after a long day when you'rereally hungry, I think pretty muchanything would taste good.All right, let's wash that down with ourvery dark purple beverage base powder stuff.Here we go! Cheers!It does taste a bit like Kool-Aid.The grape flavor actually isn't very strong.Very sweet, and kind of reminds me of cough syrup.I guess you just have to add a littlebit of alcohol to make it taste likecough syrup officially. The thing that I'mmost curious in this pack is this -- andthis is the fruit mix -- I think what's sointeresting about this is you can eat itdry or you can have it reconstituted in water.Whoa! That is not what I expected.It's like space food -- it's freeze-dried.Wow! Look at that!And has freeze dried --looks like that might be pineapple -- butthen it has these bright pink chunks in it.Whoa! Smells a bit like strawberries.Really, really light -- it's like insulation foam or something.Similar to that candy Sea Foam.And I don't know if you can hear that.It has a very brittle, spongy, airy texture.MmHmm.That's great! I really like that!MmHmm...It's actually a lot sweeter than I expected it to be,but, it's just freeze-dried fruit.My sons love freeze-dried fruit. I get 'emat Trader Joe's all the time. They lovethe strawberries and the raspberries andthey're really intensely fruity flavored.It has a kind of a strange, crunchy airy texture to them.And kind of similar to cotton candy, because once you bite itit just sort of instantly dissolves in your mouth.Delightful! The matches look to be still intact.Let's see if they'll still light.Yeah. We have fire. Great.Let's check out this toilet paper.I've never seen the toilet paper presented quite like this before.It's folded in half, probably to make it smaller.And....I'm assuming it's toliet paper -- yeah, it looks to be...It looks to be individual sheets .And there you go. You can use itfor, you know, your needs.I almost forgot -- dessert:a cookie, I think coated in chocolate.There it is.While it is sweet, and will definitelysatisfy your sweet tooth cravings, itdoesn't taste very delicious; and grantedthis is a very old cookie, but thechocolate doesn't have a really strongchocolate flavor -- it just tastes sweetwith a slight kind of cocoa flavor, andthe cookie is kind of dense and crumbly;doesn't quite taste like Graham, doesn'ttaste quite like vanilla cookie either.It actually tastes kind of soapy, but thatcould be just the fact that this is just really old.Although the vacuum packaginglook really tight on this as well --in fact everything in this package was in great order.The last thing we're going to try are the little two pieces of gum.Arghh.And now that it's had a moment to warm up,it just tastes just like sweet, wintergreen gum.Totally typical chiclet.So that completes my first tasting of a very old MRE,and I have to say, actually, it wasn't bad;although I have to say the meat and the entréewasn't very good, I was veryimpressed with the freeze-dried fruit cocktail thing.Yeah, that was pretty great. I hope youguys enjoyed that one; I hope you guyslearned something; let me know in thecomments if you have any connectionsto some old rations, because I'd love to taste more --i'm very curious to see how MREsand these rations have evolved through the years.And don't forget to follow meon social media; share this video withyour friends; subscribe; show this video a little bit of love;and yeah, I shall see you in my next video.Toodaloo! Take care! Bye!\n"