Worst MRE Of All Time

Being of moderately high mileage, my only experience with MRE's is the OG brown bag ones with the original 12 menus.

Wikipedia says these were from 1981 to 1987 and are MRE I to VII.

To me, the absolute worst thing in those 12 selections was the Beef Stew.  It's a holdover from the MCI rations (erroneously called C-rats) and, apparently, lima beans were more popular with Boomers than us GenX motherfuckers.

Despite my service dates being from 1987 to 1990, I never saw anything from the MRE VIII to XII (1988 to 1992) menu.

I liked several things that others hated, so I was a happy trooper.

I like Vienna sausages, and the "four fingers of death," to me, were four giant Vienna sausages and not hot-dogs.  If you look at it from my perspective, it's good.  If you wanted hot-dogs, it's bad.

The dehydrated meat patties were fine eaten dry as far as I was concerned.  Same for the dehydrated fruits.  Something with a non-mush texture with some flavor?  I'm in!

But looking at the 12 choices, it's clear that I never had a couple.  Beef slices in BBQ sauce and ground beef in spiced sauce I remember seeing, but not eating.

My willingness to eat the dehydrated patties meant trade opportunities.  People would offer desserts to take the pork patty if I'd give them the BBQ slices.

Crumbled up beef patty soaked in the chicken-a-la-king and heated was decent. 

Which reminds me of something I rarely dealt with.

Eating them cold.

Avco-Lycoming was kind enough to develop an MRE heater and Chrysler was kind enough to include it in every M1 Abrams.

When you have a back-deck bar and grill, you never have eat a cold MRE.