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Arron Patton is hot. Really, really hot. So hot that
just thinking about him makes me sweat. While the members of the Iraqi Parliament flee their
responsibilities this month to seek relief from the scorching heat and U.S.
and coalition forces and civilians stationed in the Green Zone enjoy the
comforts of air conditioning, video-game arcades, movies theaters, and
American fast food, Patton, his platoon, and thousands of other ordinary
service members like them are living in tents or huts whose interior
temperatures during the summer months routinely exceed 140 degrees. As a
point of comparison, the Culinary Institute of America’s temperature
chart for cooking red meats lists rare as 125 degrees, medium as 135
degrees, and well-done as 145 degrees. And if anyone thinks that’s
not sweltering enough, consider that flak jackets, helmets, weaponry, and
other equipment add an additional 50 to 60 pounds that inhibit ventilation
and generally make moving around hotter and more burdensome, albeit safer.
Often there’s not enough water to have a shower or even a pan bath,
and so rashes and other skin ailments are common. Mary Kern of Springfield
says that her grandson Ryan Woody, a naval medical technician who’s
back home in Texas after completing two tours of duty in Iraq, routinely
went as long as six weeks without a shower. What are our soldiers eating in these extreme
conditions? Three times a day, seven days a week, week after week,
they’re eating MREs — Meals, Ready to Eat. That’s if
they’re lucky — sometimes they only get two. I’m familiar with MREs, though I could never
bring myself to eat one. My father was a career National Guardsman. When my
children were little, he’d bring back spare MREs for them when he
returned from training exercises. The kids loved them, not because they
tasted good (they didn’t) but instead because of the novelty of
eating from little pouches. For Patton and his buddies, the novelty is long gone.
Until the last century, armies in combat carried a
few provisions, such as hard tack, dried beans, or salt pork, but they
primarily lived off the land, begging, buying, stealing, or confiscating
most of the food they needed to survive. The food provided for U.S. troops
today is certainly superior in nutrition and convenience. Taste is another matter. MREs are primarily
designed for durability and can be eaten hot or cold. Each meal contains a
main course high in starch; crackers; a spread such as cheese, peanut
butter, or jelly; a dessert or snack; a powdered beverage mix; an accessory
packet; a plastic spoon; and a flameless ration heater (seldom needed
during the Iraqi summer). There are strict requirements for packaging: MREs
must be able to withstand parachute drops of 1,250 feet, must have a shelf
life of three-and-a-half years at 80 degrees (nine months at 100 degrees),
and must be able to sustain short-term temperature extremes of minus-60
degrees to 120 degrees. Though there’s an astonishing amount of
information about MREs on the Internet, none of the sites I visited
indicated how long meals last at 140 degrees. MREs were first distributed in 1981. By most accounts
they were barely palatable, and they soon acquired a slew of unflattering
nicknames: “meals rejected by everyone,” “meals rarely
edible,” “meals rejected by Ethiopians” (this during the
Ethiopian famine), and “three lies for the price of one; it’s
not a meal, it’s not ready, and you can’t eat it.” The 14
varieties were bland, featuring such main courses as chicken à la
king, diced turkey with gravy, beef stew, and frankfurters with beans
(popularly known as “the four fingers of death”).
Those in charge of creating MREs have worked to make
them more palatable to soldiers in the field. Some of the newer MREs
feature ethnic entrées, such as beef enchiladas, Cajun rice and
sausage, and cheese tortellini. Some contain seasoning packets or tiny
bottles of hot sauce. There are now 24 different meals, up from the
original 14, partly to increase soldiers’ acceptance of them but also
because, although MREs were originally intended to be used for only 10 days
or less, troops are now subsisting on MREs for 60 days and longer. There
are now vegetarian, kosher, and halal options.
A field-evaluation taste test of the 2008 line of
MREs by 400 soldiers at Fort Greeley, Alaska, revealed how far MREs have
come — and how far they still have to go. Most of the favorable
comments were about such things as granola and sweets. One soldier wrote,
“The vanilla pudding is so good that I ripped it open, licked the
inside, and rolled around on top of it like a dog.” Many of the
entrées, however, didn’t fare so well. Comments about
entrées included, “This entrée will only be eaten if
you haven’t eaten all day”; “Do you even try this stuff
before you give it to us?”; “Please do not punish soldiers with
that anymore”; and “Oh my God. What were you thinking? I wanted
to die. Even POWs deserve better.”
There’s another problem with MREs.
They’re generally low in fiber, which leads to problems with
regularity and, inevitably, nicknames such as “meals refusing to
excrete.” On his eighth Iraqi USO tour, comedian Al Franken joked
that he’d had five MREs since his arrival and “none of them had
an exit strategy.” One soldier who took part in the Fort Greely
evaluation wrote that a chicken-and-dumpling entrée “triggered
a flatulence symphony in my tent all night.”
Whether to provide a more balanced diet, tasty treats,
or simply a touch of home, families and friends have been sending food to
soldiers on the front for as long as mail delivery has allowed it. During
World War II, the owner of New York City’s legendary Katz’s
Famous Delicatessen had three sons in the armed forces, and the Katz
family’s tradition of sending them food became embodied in a slogan:
“Send a salami to your boy in the Army.” Thousands of their
dried, aged sausages made their way to servicemen on both the European and
Pacific fronts. There’s a legend that the sausages helped end the war:
When artillery units ran out of shells, they’d throw Katz’s
salamis instead. The enemy loved this American treat so much that
they’d surrender en masse. Katz’s is still sending salamis to
boys (and girls) in the Army; they can be ordered online at katzdeli.com.
Here in central Illinois, Patton’s girlfriend,
Kaitlin Zentz, and her mother, Miriam, send him a variety of foodstuffs.
Even Dinty Moore beef stew and Easy Mac are a welcome change from the MREs.
They also send canned fruits and vegetables and snacks to tuck into his
pack. Kern sent her grandson canned green beans and jars of bacon bits,
summer sausage, and cheese and crackers. Chocolate is popular but may
arrive as a melted mess. Of course homemade treats are especially welcome;
cookies wrapped in bubble wrap or cut to fit inside potato-chip cans
usually arrive in good shape. Packages get there amazingly fast. Patton,
stationed in an area of Baghdad that has seen some of the worst fighting,
usually receives his in seven to nine days, and Woody, stationed in other
areas of Iraq, got his in about 12 days. There’s just one thing Patton has requested
that he not be sent from home: beef jerky. It’s just too much like
some of the things he’s seen on the streets of Baghdad.
Send questions and comments to Julianne Glatz at realcuisine@insightbb.com.
Granola is one of the more popular items in Meals,
Ready to Eat, but the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may enjoy this
homemade version:
Homemade Granola
1/2 cup vegetable oil, such as canola 3/4 cup honey 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional) Zest from two large oranges (optional) 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 2 cups raw wheat germ 1 cup raw sunflower seeds 1/2 cup flaxseed 1/2 cup raw sesame seeds 2 cups nuts (e.g., pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, or a mixture), broken if large 1 1/2 cups dried fruit (e.g., cranberries, cherries, blueberries, apricots, raisins)
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a saucepan, heat
the oil, honey, and cinnamon, if you are using it, until it’s just
beginning to show a few bubbles. Meanwhile, combine the remaining
ingredients except the
dried fruit on a large sheet pan, mixing to combine. Drizzle the honey/oil
mixture over the dried ingredients and stir with a spoon until everything
is well mixed. Place pan in the oven and toast the contents, stirring
frequently, for 30 to 40 minutes or until it’s browned to your taste.
Cool completely, then stir in the dried fruit. Makes about 12 cups.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2007.
