I’ve just reread Mother To The World, by Richard Wilson. (Thanks to Red Skeezix.) ‘Iron rations’ are mentioned once in it. I first came upon the phrase in high school, reading Alas Babylon. I gather from context that ‘iron rations’ were an emergency supply of food (from Alas Babylon, or else a fortifying ration (in Mother To The World it is a flask of alcohol).
Why are ‘iron rations’ called ‘iron rations’? Did they originally contain iron? Or is the name sarcastic? Is there a specific list of what is ‘officially’ in them? (i.e., did the term come from the military?) Or is it a colloquial term that someone came up with that stuck?
I have seen the term used in fantasy literature and games. In that context, it means rations that last a long time without spoiling. In many “medieval” worlds iron is relatively rare and much longer lasting than the alternatives (mainly wood), hence the name.
Typically these rations would be dried breads, biscuits and cured / heavily salted meats or jerky. Thus, everything would be hard and relatively unpalatable. This may have also contributed to the “iron” moniker.
The people I’ve gamed with have always considered iron rations to be a sort of pemmican, that is, dried meat and fruits, pounded into a powder, and then mixed with edible fat or grease of some sort. This stuff requires no refrigeration, lasts for a long time, provides a lot of calories in a small volume, is somewhat nourishing, and is the food of last resort. Characters would generally be presumed to live off the land, that is, some time was spent each day to hunt and gather, unless the setting was something like a desert or snowfield.
This is an ancient and hazy memory, but I think I remember being told by my father, who was in the British army during WWII, that he was issued with “iron rations” consisting of a slab (maybe contained in a metal tin) of very dark, bitter chocolate, the point being that chocolate (especially dark chocolate) has a high iron content, and that this provided a quick way of replenishing iron lost through loss of blood, which might keep you alive long enough for medical attention to get to you if you had been (I guess, lightly) wounded. Thinking about it now, it seems rather unlikely that it would actually work, but perhaps such rations might have been issued nonetheless, if some military high-up thought it might work.
I can’t say why they were called iron rations, but,
An old book of mine listed the different kinds of rations that were availible.
I think it ran from A to S, unsucessfull types were dropped from the list
A rations were fresh foods
C thru K were various canned foods
R rations were a kind of candy bar (This did not work out well, because,
everybody would raid the life boat stores, leaving nothing for a real
emergency.)
I always assumed fantasy iron rations were a kind of navy biscuit, dried pumpernickel or similar cousin of Pratchett’s dwarf bread : something that’ll last for ages partly because eating a small quantity of it makes you feel full, and partly because once tasted you’d rather eat your own feet rather than have to eat some fscking dwarf bread ever again.
