OK, so tell me gentlemen... back in the days of *C* rations and *LURPS* there was always a packet of instant coffee....... what was in your equivalent? A tea bag........ how was your ration put together?
Our ration packs pre dated the boil in the bag stuff they get today, there was something like half a dozen different menu's. The grub was packed in small cans along with a tube of sweetened milk, a tube of strawberry jam, oatmeal biscuits, three tea bags, a sachet of coffee, a couple sachets of sugar and a couple of OXO cubes. The best menu was with the meat pudding, the worst was chicken supreme, which looked smelled and tasted like white cat vomit, it was disgusting. One snack I loved, was covering a oatmeal biscuit in sweetened milk and then covering it with strawberry jam, it was a brilliant energy booster. At night when it was particularly cold I'd make up a drink of OXO, it was really warming.
On one exercise the cooks served up chicken supreme, I nicked (borrowed) transport and went to the local supermarket where I purchased a pack of bacon, half a dozen eggs, a can of baked beans. Back on location I climbed into the back of a truck and began cooking on my little blue gas burner, the smell of frying bacon wafted over the location when hands suddenly appeared over the tail gate of the truck and the wails of, "Awwww come on, share." Guess what my reply was.
In the late 1960's I was tasked from Singapore up into Malaya, the compo ration I was given was Irish Stew, when I opened my can to eat the stew, it was nothing but fat and gristle, I chucked it. I wouldn't mind betting it was left over rations from WW2.
When I was with 5 Queens TA a group of us spent two weeks with the US Army at Coleman Barracks in Mannheim. We took part in various exercises with the US Army, I was most impressed with the US ration packs, they contained among other things, two cigarettes!!!
While we were in the field, a trucked turned up and started serving up steak!!! One of our blokes was so impressed he took a photograph, when our Colour Sergeant was shown the photograph back at 5 Queens he remarked along the lines of "If you think I'm going to serve steak to you arseholes, you can F:cens:k Off and think again."
:-(