The Army already did this.
One of the original MRE’s from the early to mid 80’s was a dehydrated pork pattywhich was accompanied by dehydrated catchup.
You were supposed to rehydrate the pork in a little clear envelope most just ate it like a cracker with the catchup powder sprinkled on top. Add in cheese spread that could be used to caulk a bath tub and the super dry crackers along with your vitamin fortified cool aide and you have a meal which would offend everyone.
what, you can get crack in those things now?
Topped with a sprinkling of cheese, in case the inclusion of a non-kosher animal (pork, spotted owl) doesn’t offend the orthodox/conservative Jewish contingent enough.
Which of course poses the question: is a ham and cheese sandwich (mixing milk and meat) any worse than a plain ham sandwich ?
Hmmm. The grappa - being alcoholic - would be taboo to the Muslim members of the services. And true haggis includes lungs, which means it’s not legal in the US (see reference). So there might be some legal issues with that… and a knock-off w/o the lungs just isn’t the same, We want honest, authentic “food” in these MREs :mad:;).
FWIW, Typo Knig has suggested our Passover seder menu include bacon-wrapped scallops in bechamel sauce. I don’t think those would work too well as an MRE however.
Buckeyes!
Hakarl, or however you spell it. That Icelandic rotten shark.
From my vast experience gained from watching Generation Kill, I know that Marines hate finding Charms in their MRE’s.
I was going to suggest a simple Bacon Cheeseburger as an entree. There is a description here of the delights of eating a canned cheeseburger.
I think that is outdone by Aesiron’s effort, though. One taste treat in that line not yet mentioned is lutefisk–cod prepared with lye, apparently the consistency (Jello-like) is one of the delights of the dish.
A couple other possible inclusions:
Mealworms, crickets or any other ‘bug’ that’s regularly eaten (yes, the maggot cheese covers this, but make it explicit). Defense Department Research should be able to develop a method of live-storage for this dish.
Don’t forget to include at least some wheat, peanuts, soy, and tree nuts, preferably in a fine powder mixed into every dish (not so much ‘offensive’ as ‘makes certain people unable to eat it’) Oh, and put some animal-derived gelatin in the powder, too, for both offensive ingredients and offensive texture. Naturally, these ingredients all come from genetically modified organisms.
Soy-based fake meat (but with animal gelatin). Or tofu, but not in a tofu dish, but just substituted in for a real flavorful meat (tofu reuben or something).
I know swastika-shaped cookies and what-not are out, but would something like hamentashen (regularly made, but very much associated with a particular religious tradition) count? In the case of Hamentashen, make them sweet but bacon-cheese flavored, just to offend a) kosher Jews and halal Muslims, b) those opposed to Jews, and c) those opposed to savory-flavored desserts. Obviously the proper method is some combination of actual non-kosher bacon and offensively bad, probably carcinogenic artificial bacon flavor.
Have ‘fries’. The word before “fries” should be “French”, but covered with a sticker saying “Freedom”, and with the sticker having a marker crossing it out and writing “French” back in. That should offend people on both sides of the issue.
I suppose if you can label dishes “authentic” <whatever> then there are lots of possibilities. “Authentic southern cornbread” that’s as sweet as a dessert, ‘Authentic New England Clam Chowder” that’s tomato based, that sort of thing.
instead of Grappa, use Gaoliang, a Taiwanese distilled liquor made from millet that tastes quite a bit like gasoline.
include some factory-sliced fugu.
Newfoundland cod tongue. very chewy, maybe use it as a substitute for chewing gum.
some nuoc mam ((Vietnamese fermented fish sauce) for nostalgia purposes).
actual Aloha Airline peanuts ( just in case the above mentioned peanut butter and tree nuts haven’t already killed off all the allergic individuals). (the airline is defunct, so you can probably get the peanuts cheap)
You need to include the Australian military utensil which Aussies call a F.R.E.D. (F…ing Ridiculuous Eating Device) which is a combination of can opener and spoon.
I’ll see your Chicken a’la King and raise you an Omlet With Ham.
There was also a dehydrated beef patty which was equally horrific.
Hey! Throw that thing my way.
I gots hot sauce!
You disgust me.
I don’t know when you got out. Most of them have hot sauce now. At the end of a week in the field there are a bunch of MRE boxes left with only the omelet meal. I have never met anyone that will take it unless starving. Even then the entree is thrown out.
I ate my last MRE in '93. Our “leftovers” were only Chicken a’la King. Even the people who said it was “Ok” ate it only occasionally. At the time, hot sauce only came in select MREs, so we always had a bottle of our own to hand. Along with salt, pepper, and in my case, garlic salt.
Personally, I was none too fond of the BBQ Meatballs, either.
I started eating them in 89. Now I wish I had some instead of the crappy contractor meals I’m eating. Here is what looks like a pretty current menu of the available MREs (WARNING PDF) . Most of them aren’t bad. They all come with heater packets. They all taste much better when heated. There are more ethnic meals and some more vegaterian meals.
I’d recommend finding the old school “beans and dicks” C-ration entree and making sure that the franks (the “dicks”) were made of pork.
Or, the bad old “beans and motherfuckers” - lima beans and ham would probably do as well.
Countless GIs hated those both of those entreees in WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and all the time in between as well. Making them un-Kosher and un-Halal is just a bonus.
What the heck is a ‘HOOAH! Bar’? I’m almost afraid to find out.
Officially, treif (non-kosher) is treif, and one kind isn’t better or worse than another. Unofficially, ham or pork is somehow more treif than other treif to a lot of people. I don’t think ham and cheese is worse than just ham, though.
Could we put some big soft puffy bagels in there, ideally with lots of different sweet flavorings in them? Those offend Mr. Neville terribly. We could even use them for making ham and cheese sandwiches.
We should also offer surstromming. Even the people who like that generally eat it outdoors because of the smell.
For a drink, Laotian Snake Whiskey. I hear it also comes with scorpions instead of snakes.
I’m thinking meatloaf too, but instead of pork/beef let’s up the stakes to veal/pork/horse meatloaf, topped with kraft cheese food, ketchup and fermented shrimp paste. Guaranteed to offend Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Americans, foodies, and animal-welfare types.
And because they’re afraid it will detonate all over the dining room.
eta: Come to think of it, that would make it a smart thing to put in an MRE. An organic landmine.
