Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - *UNLOCKED* There is No Life or Nourishment in the Meat

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

On this episode the gang eats a bunch of military rations from around the world and discusses some horrific missteps from the history of military food. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Follow us on Twitter @lions_by Join the reddit community: https://www.reddit.com/r/LionsLedByDonkeys/

Hey everybody, welcome to yet another bonus episode of the Lines Led by Donkeys podcast. As always, I am Joe, and with me today is Nick and Rich. Hey, I think this is the first one I've been on that you didn't say hello to start it off. I try to change it up and sound awkward in different ways. For somebody who has been recording a podcast for well over a year now, I am still very awkward on intros. It's like meeting me in real life. I don't know what to do.

Awkward is definitely the word I would use to describe you. Thanks. I guess I'll just go fuck myself. We all stuck around for each other. I haven't scared that many people away. Only my family and friends. I know we haven't told you guys what's happening yet today but if you guys hear weird sounds it's because I'm massaging a pack of cheese sauce sit on it

cheese spread so that brings us to what we were talking about today and the reason why I decided to make it a bonus episode um because I had a fan uh send me all two different fans send me a whole bunch of rations from other countries. One from France and the other one from Russia. And I actually almost got a Kazakh ration off Amazon. But I looked it up and it turns out there is a real worry for botulism because the way that they make them. And I decided I'm not willing to die for this podcast. But we are going for that. Yeah.

I've also heard that about the Russian one, but not nearly as bad. We'll be all right. And if not, we all have free health care. I really don't want botulism, though. You'll be all right. We all could stand to lose a pound or two. So we are going to talk a little bit about the history of military rations. Oh, shit.

I thought we were going to start eating. And we are going to taste test these military rations. Oh, shit. I thought we were going to start eating. And we are going to taste test these various rations. So we have an MRE of Nick's Choice, which is a meal ready to eat for our civilian friends out there, which is the current American military ration. We have two different French military rations. One is a lasagna meal, and the other one is a paella and sausages.

Honestly, I am just jealous of the French military right now. And we have a Russian one of which we cannot fucking read any of it. But we do have some terribly translated instructions that came with it. One of the pictures looks like steak. It's definitely every single one is some kind of meat type substance in a can. And another good reason why we're doing this episode

is both Rich and Nick are non-commissioned officers and cooks in the United States Army. Culinary specialists is what we're called now, Joe? Death from within. I just want to eat.

So Nick shuts up. We will start off by eating what can be considered a starter. Now, we are the American one really doesn't come with a dessert and a starter. It comes with a whole bunch of shit and a dessert. We're going to choose something

to be a starter. The Russian one, we simply cannot understand. I feel like the crackers and something to be a starter the russian one we simply cannot understand i feel like the the crackers and spread would be the starter i guess we can try that the french one comes with a designated appetizer like the french one came with both boar and pork pate which is just two different kinds of pork right it's still wild pig right well yeah pork would just be like a probably domesticated pig and boar would be a wild boar. Yeah, I am sure that the French army is like, ah, we have to spice this up a bit

and go find some wild boar for our soldiers, which is apparently what they did. Boar is gamey. If you've ever had actual wild, like javelina or boar or whatever. I've had some wild pig from South Texas. Yeah, it's a little bit gamier than the regular pork. I do remember it being very from South Texas. Yeah, it's a little bit gamier than the regular pork.

I do remember it being very, very good. Yeah. Now, we're all going to take a bite and pass it around, though I think we all could feasibly pass on every MRE menu because we already know what it all tastes like intimately. But we're going to do this. Now, I'm going to go for the Russian one, since I forced this fucking botulism massacre on all of us.

I will start there, and I have no idea what I'm going to eat, because it's all in Russian. So just so everybody knows the instructions that I got with it. By the way, shout out to Nikita for sending me this in the first place. This is from the badly translated menu that came with it. Meat and cereal canned food. Meat and cereal canned food

slash meat vegetable. I like cereal and meat. I like my meat. I feel like meat and cereal do not go together. I like my meat vegetables. Canned meat. Canned meat paste force meat. Canned food vegetable. Force? Force meat. It's one word.

That's actually a culinary thing. What is it? I mean, it's like ground meat, I think. I thought they were just forced meat. Is it still alive? Do I have to forcibly eat it? Is force being applied to this meat? Is this meat a drunken Saturday night alone with a free Pornhub subscription?

Gross. So I can't exactly remember, but I do remember doing forced meat in culinary school i bet you do uh concentrated drink for toning now this is either a bad translation or this is a dietary supplement i don't know they got some fat. Yeah. And means for disinfecting water, which is, and it helpfully points out that the spoon is plastic. I can see that. It looks like a,

a regular plastic spoon you'd get from Walmart. I don't know what one grade means, but that is the, the grade of cracker that it comes with. One grade. Yeah. It says ship's biscuit from wheat flour of one grade. I feel like that's not a good grade.

It probably is not, but it is one grade. So I will pick something from the Russian box at random. I'm going to pick the smallest one because I feel like that's probably an appetizer. Are you spreading it on cracker? I'm going to spread it on cracker. Okay.

So all of the... There's a lot of food on the table right now. And my dog is very interested in this and she will not be when she tastes it. Funny story about that. I was the guy who always tried to feed stray dogs in Afghanistan because I'm a

dog person forever. I can't help it. And I tried to... I'm like, well, I don't have any fucking food. I'm living dog person forever. I can't help it. And I tried to, I'm like, well, I don't have any fucking food. I'm living on MREs. This dog was half dead skin and bones. And I tried to feed it an MRE and it smelled it and cried and walked away

without eating it. It's like, no, thank you. Death is preferable. Would you try feeding it? I believe it was the veggie omelet. And for people who have never eaten this,

it is notorious for being one of the worst menus. And there's a reason why I was okay giving it away, because nobody was going to eat it. I would pick sleep over eating this thing for dinner. Yeah, nobody ever wanted the veggie omelet. So the ship's biscuit cracker is generally also known as hardtack, but this is not a hardtack that people think of when they think Civil War.

I can actually bite this and not fuck myself up. What grade biscuit are you eating? This is a 1 grade. I believe this is the E1 of crackers. This spread, which I have randomly chosen to be the spread to use. I hope it's fucking horse meat.

Oh, God. What is that? Oh, God. It is a formless white mass. It looks... Smell it. Cheese, maybe? I'm going to pass it to our resident cheese monger in Rich.

That's very true. It has a bit of oil in it. It looks like butter and... It smells like cheese. It does smell like cheese. Like really shitty cheese. Yeah, I think it's a bit of oil in it. It looks like butter. It smells like cheese. It does smell like cheese. Like really shitty cheese. Yeah, I think it's cheese. I'm going for it.

Yeah, you should. I'm going for it. I got the oil on my finger. I did too. It's quite sticky. It has a cum consistency, if you will. If your cum looks like this, you need to go to the doctor. Seriously?

Nobody looks like that? That need to go to the doctor. Seriously. Nobody looks like that? That is very solid. Absolutely not. Okay, so I'm going to... The oil's sticking to it. Okay, so like cheese... Oh, no. Cheese down.

I dropped the cheese on the floor. Like cheese jello. Now we all can't eat it. You're still good. Just some dog hair in it. Dang it. This does look like a cheese jello. So I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot.

You're taking a big bite. Holy shit. He goes all in. Your face looks questionable you don't know what's going on it's unpleasant it's unpleasant your face doesn't show that so you look like you're trying to like it it's a very gamey cheese which is not a way i feel like cheese should be described um if i was to steal a quote from from chopped our our resident uh favorite food network show i'm gonna say it has the mouth feel of vomit a very creamy vomit but it's not very strong tasting no it's it's it's essence of cheese it tastes like a lighter version of the American cheese spread that you get in MREs. It's lighter.

The completely shortening tasting cracker overpowers it. That's how light the flavor is. Yeah, the crackers taste like if you attempted to bake something. Oh, these crackers are shit. But left out. This tastes like straight shortening, right? But left out anything that'd give it flavor. Yeah, like salt, for instance.

Like literally... The cheese didn't do at all either. No, the cheese tastes like... If somebody tried to describe cheese to you, and you've never had it before, but also... It's like the La Croix of cheese. It is the La Croix of cheese, yeah. It tastes like TV static.

So we are going to move on to the... Did you want to do the crackers? Cracker with cheese from the American one? The American. So first of all, since we are a history show... I have a slick tongue right now. Your tongue's a bit slippery. Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense. I think it's from the cheese. Yeah. That makes a lot... Because when you think russian you think slippery tongue it's because they're cheese uh now let me uh give a little warning when it comes to any of the history facts i'm going to talk about today i'm leaving out everything to do with this podcast honor honored emperor napole Napoleon Bonaparte. Not because I have an undying love for Napoleon, which is also true, but because

we are planning a full series on his invasion of Russia this year. A lot of that story is how badly his food supply got fucked up and I really don't want to ruin any of that. There's a popular saying, an army marches on its stomach.

And that's pretty true throughout history. Now, I guess a more realistic saying would be a soldier's stomach leads the march, or at least it did for quite some time. During the age of the Roman legions and for most of history, for that matter, soldiers

would be forced to bring their food with them or forge for food which in this term means stealing it. So I'm now being gifted something I am very familiar with and that is disgusting MRE cheese spread on a vegetable cracker.

This cheese spread looks like a naturally orange lotion or something. It looks like Cheez Whiz, but Cheez Whiz is still better. Which is saying something because Cheez Whiz is fucking gross. It's like Cheez Whiz's generic brother. I used to know somebody that would just straight up eat the cheese by itself. I've done before.

You're disgusting. I'm not. You're a disgusting human being. I'm not denying that. The jalapeno cheese is where it's at. That one's good. I like that one. So this cheese is not good.

It's much stronger tasting than the Russian cheese, but not in a good way. Right. You can tell that you're eating a cheese product. Like a cheese-like substance. It tastes like... God, I need a beer to wash this fucking shit down. So I feel like our first fact, since we're doing cheese and cracker plate right now, charcuterie, if you will. This is the charcuterie of disappointment and misery.

So I feel like our first fact should be that the cheese powder that's on Cheetos and stuff like that was invented for the US military. I feel like that's like a NASA thing, like Tang. No, it was invented for the army. It was invented for army rations. I feel like that's like a NASA thing. Like Tang. No. No, it was invented for the army. It was invented for army rations. That's such a depressing fact because there's people out there like, oh yeah, Cheetos are the shit. But also like if they made rations,

if they covered every bit of an MRE with Cheeto dust, it would be better. I don't like Cheetos. I don't either. Hot Cheetos are great. They could do a fucking hot Cheeto fucking MRE dust-in. I fucking love hot Cheetos. Hot Cheetos were invented by a

plant worker at a Cheetos factory because he didn't like the taste of Cheetos, and he made them up. I want to hug that guy. I'm assuming that Cheetos did not compensate him at all for the tens of billions of dollars they've made since. I feel like I should have brought some Cheetos over so I could fit as many as I can in my mouth.

That was a question. I do remember that. So we're going to move on to one of the pâtés. Yes. I'm excited. Hold on. Did we do the French cracker? The French crackers are...

No, we did not. I forgot the French came with an assorted box of crackers. Some of them are chocolate. Yeah, hold on. Yeah, it's got three different shades here. We got regular cracker. We got pasty one, kind of like Joe. And then we got almost chocolate, almost like a burnt one, like Nick.

I wouldn't say me. Salted biscuits. But I feel like that one's more... No, the cracker... Oh, they put a burnt one in every single one. So the cracker chart looks a lot like the chart that was held up against Peter before he got beaten by the cops in Family Guy.

Yep. Now, if you ate these crackers in LA, which one of these do you have to be before you get beaten with a flashlight? I think if you have any of these... Definitely the salted. So from like cracker two and up. Holy shit, hold on.

Each one is individually wrapped. Yeah, this is nice. This is good stuff. That's a chocolate one. How do you know? Because it says it on the box. It's chocolate colored. That's English writing right there, Nick.

Here's the thing. We don't know yet. Have you had it? It says it on the box. Can we trust it? This is not even a French product. I'm pretty sure it's probably made in the UK. And chocolate in French is chocolate.

It's a French word, turns out. So I have the... I'm going to say this cracker is the color of someone who's arrested by ICE and put in a very depressing concentration camp. Mine's definitely murdered by the cops. Oh, okay. So Nick has possible... You might be okay if the cops come.

Yeah, you might be okay, but you're still on the edge because this is edgy. Yeah, that's not good. It's not good. Hold on. Should I do it with the plum jelly? Okay, so this is the best cracker yet. Are we going to

bite and pass? Well, they all came with several crackers. Unless you really want to eat my moist cracker edges. None of that. None of that. Moist cracker is a no are we passing crackers yet this is like

just cracker passing yeah this is the worst form of ASMR ever that's just chewing military rations into a microphone the chocolate one is very mild chocolate flavor it's not that good

no it's not but it's also harder to get into. That's what she said. I almost fucking broke a tooth. So these crackers, even though we've eaten two different kinds of hardtack so far, are the hardest ones that we've had yet. Wait till you bite the chocolate one. So the French MRE is interesting.

The chocolate's at the end. So the French MRE is interesting in that it doesn't look like an MRE. The French MRE box looks like it's full of stuff you'd buy at a 7-Eleven. It's not good looking, but all of the cans are name brand. If these are made specifically for the military, and I have no idea if they are, they definitely don't look like it, which maybe that's part of the reason why they do it that way. The crackers that Nick had are the best.

Yeah, for sure. The not so colored-colored ones. So the chocolate cracker tastes like a chocolate Teddy Graham. Yeah, it does. It does. But not. Chocolate Teddy Grahams are delicious. Yeah, but they're not very chocolatey.

They're not too... Okay. But they still have cookie flavor. It's not bad. It's not bad. I kind of like it. So we have a French cheese. I'm going to pass to Rich because she's our resident stuffy French culinarian.

Fromage fondue. Yep, that's why I said it was cheese. Because that's all I know. I feel like we should have spread this on our crackers. There's still several crackers. Good thing we still have chocolate crackers. I don't know if the chocolate ones are the right ones for this. Here, go ahead and combine countries.

This is a Russian cracker because it's the Cold War of food. Joe, we have plenty of French crackers. It's okay. So I'm good on crackers. There is no spoon. You just dip. Here you go. God damn it.

Thank you. Now. It looks a lot like the Russian cheese, but less solid. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, to be honest. How does it smell? I don't know. If it's one thing that French do well, it should be cheese, right? Yeah, but it's army cheese.

It smells not like anything. Not a good sign. Spread some on. Now there's another little bit of military ration history. You have to remember, through much of the history... Oh my god, are you eating mayo? Look at this. This is fucking mayo.

It looks like cheese sharded. Okay, Rich is making one hell of a face. I'm not going to eat it. Eat it. You have to eat everything. The flavor that we said about... It's not mayo. Let's just be clear on that.

But the flavor that we said for the Russian one, it's even less flavor. The Russian one was barely any cheese flavor. This one is just fucking spread with it. This is La Croix fucking cheese spreads. This tastes like nothing.

It literally is scientifically engineered to taste like nothing. Which I guess is better than what the Russian cheese tastes like. Though, it tastes strange. Because, like, I know I'm supposed to be eating cheese, but I don't taste a goddamn thing. So we're going to move on

to... What are we going to move on to next? We really should have brought, like, a trash can in here. Nah. How about another food fact? Or history fact or whatever. So, excuse me as I chew up this nasty shit. One of the biggest problems with pretty much the majority of human conflict up until the modern age, give or take.

At least, yeah, I'll say modern age. They didn't understand what food sanitation was. This is way before germ theory. People didn't know how to... They had a concept of what pure water was. They know that they probably should drink running water. Probably.

But at the same time, there's a reason up until just about the last couple decades that if you went to war, there's a very good chance if you were going to die, it was going to be from some

very easily communicable disease that you got from your food or water. So the Roman Legion found a way to make this a little bit easier. They realized that storing meat was incredibly hard. Obviously, they didn't have ice. They didn't have refrigeration techniques.

I mean, like salted, like trying to cure it with salt was a thing, but it was still really hard to keep all this with a marching army. So you'd see a Roman legion marching and you'd see a huge herd of animals being driven behind them. They kept them preserved

by simply only killing them when they needed them. That's definitely the smart way to do it. That's honestly fucking awesome. I would love to have a butcher in the unit. That's a full-time job. Just ate one meat ration for that legion. It cost 120 sheep a day.

Holy shit, that's a lot of fucking butchering. The herd, sometimes they brought it with them, Other times they'd have to steal them from like farmers and stuff. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But it should be noted that the supply system they had was pretty much always falling apart. And these things just wouldn't be issued to them in the modern sense. They would have to pull them from the countryside.

That's why like you for a long time one of the ways that armies would piss off locals is simply by being there. Because if you're from a small village and a fucking legion walks through, they're going to eat

everything. And whatever they don't eat immediately, they're going to carry with them. So you're just like, well, we're all going to die now. It's not like they can go to the corner store. That was literally all of my grain. That was for the winter. That's when like they can go to the corner store. That was literally all of my grain. That was for the winner. That's when you shit in the grain.

They did that too because they were all in varying shades of having dysentery. Because remember they had no idea what bacteria was. It's like, I have to take a shit. I'm going to go shit over there where this dude's eating. Or like it's down river or something and it just contaminates the whole water.

Let me see if they're drinking water. It's okay because they're drinking water is like 50 yards that way. It's good. I don't see the shit. Therefore, I'm not ingesting it. Now, there's a funny story about that, which we'll get into in a little bit. But obviously, I already talked about the water purification thing. And that was a really easy way to die from some like horrible

explosive diarrhea related death, which I guess was made easier because they're all wearing like skirts. Yeah. Just free flowing. There's a way to get around that and that is by cutting their water with wine.

They diluted their wine with a ton of water, which made it, which made it potable to make. Does that work? Is that what we're doing now? their wine with a ton of water, which made it potable. Does that work? Is that what we're doing now? We did bring a bottle of red wine with us.

My original plan was to cut an entire bottle of wine and then put water purification tablets in it, and Rich quickly vetoed that, which is the only time I've ever lost a popular vote on this podcast because it's a pod tater ship. So let me just give my experience here because what Joe's saying about water purification in the military and how many people got sick, we still have this issue because probably five or six years ago, we didn't get our water buffalo. Okay, I say we. My leadership did not get our water buffalo properly sanitized and inspected before we took it out to the field. And we got awful fucking food poisoning from this horrible infected water that we were drinking out of the water buffalo. And so I'm very, very iffy about anything with water. Honestly, one of my favorite stories that you told me today, actually,

when I told you what my idea was for this episode, was that how far do you... So now there's very specific regulations and how far a porter potty or a slit trench has to be from where you serve food for obvious fucking reasons. Right. In our deployment together, now how far is that distance how far is that distance sergeant so the porter potties are meters meters yeah the porter potties are supposed to be

are supposed to be at least 100 meters from any food preparation area downhill. So our porta potties in the base that I believe I called like Camp Spartan or something in the book was 20 feet away. If that, like they were literally if you walked out of the kitchen and turned right and walked like maybe 10 feet, that's where the porta potty line started. Yeah. walked like maybe 10 feet. That's where the port-a-potty line started. Yeah, and everybody was in a constant state of some form of bacterial stomach infection because of that. The cooks were obviously blamed for. So they constantly blamed us.

Oh, you guys are getting us sick. You guys are doing this. I'm very, very anal about food preparation and safety. You're very anal about where you poop? Also, yes. But I literally, after they accused us of getting them sick, I would stand outside and watch these nasty, nasty

boys walk out of the port-a-potty straight into the chow line, pass the hand wash station and just start serving themselves food. Well, yeah, of course. Yeah, gross. I pee on my hands to make sure I don't get athlete pee. Athlete hands?

Now, there's another thing that the Romans did to maybe make their water a little bit more sanitary. Now, this did not work, and I'm pretty sure the wine didn't work either. It was just a way to give them something to drink without getting them entirely

drunk, which is like the diluted wine, but they would drink vinegar. Yeah. Really? And so if they ever thought they needed more energy, kind of like an energy... It's the ye olde bang or monster. I don't like this. I feel like vinegar would be a better water purification because of all of the acid than wine. Probably.

So when they needed a bit of fat, which was a good way to get energy, it gives you something to burn, was they drank olive oil. Just imagine that. I mean, I thought that that's what people in that region just did anyways. Well, yeah. I mean, they have to to survive. They're like vampires, but only for olives.

Also, another fun fact that has nothing to do with the military. A vast majority of the imported olive oil from Italy is actually all fake because the mafia switches it out for profit. Now, we have moved on to the pate from the French menu. These do not smell good. It smells like- Is it supposed to have a white surface? It smells like potted meat. No, actually- I'm getting more...

It's definitely canned meat. Corned beef hash. This smells familiar. It smells like corned beef hash. Because corned beef hash is canned meat if you get it out of a can. That's what it smells like. Now, it is also covered in a fine jelly-like sheen. Okay, cool.

You're getting the same thing we're getting here. That is fat. Yeah. And I know it's supposed to be heated up. So these all came with chemical heaters um now they all now you can't use those indoors because they can kill you uh so we decided stronger than yours you might have the boar then i might have the regular pig so we couldn't use any of the chemical heaters while we're recording because we would

yeah kill ourselves just in the room. Everything we are eating is raw, which I know is not how you're supposed to... Not raw, cold. Yeah, it's already pre-cooked. At least I hope the European ones are pre-cooked. I know the American one is. Pate is fully cooked no matter how you have it. The fat would generally melt into the product if you heated it.

I like the pork rib MRE in the American rations is like coated in a thick jelly that you have to heat to get to go. Or if you're me and always eat MREs cold, you have to scrape it off and just kind of hook it somewhere. It looks like fucking ectoplasm.

Like you hawked a giant lug. Yeah, like my MRE came. So this gel that you're talking about, this is like if I make a soup and boil the bones and everything, that gel will be on the top of the soup. It's just animal fat or animal marrow and stuff. I'm pretty sure this is actually fat from a French conscript. Now, I'm going to take a bite of this pet.

And again, my dog is very interested, and she probably won't be if she actually gets because it smells like dog food. That's why she's interested. That's a good point. Yeah. I feed like a much better than this. Okay. So that's a bit hard,

which is not what I expected. Oh man. Oh wow. That was a bigger chunk than I wanted. Fuck. And I got the fucking goo. Oh, the consistency is fucking awful. It just melts. It's like a meat jelly than I wanted. Fuck, and I got the fucking goo. Oh, the consistency's fucking awful.

It just melts. It's like a meat jelly. God. Oh, I got the jello. Not good. This is the fucking worst thing we've had yet. Let me try yours. This is the worst fucking thing we've had. Oh, God. Yeah, switch. Let me get, I have this really thick fucking. You fucking skipped out on your

gel. You didn't get any of it. It's all gel. Okay, that did not. Wow, this one's way harder. Why does yours look rotten? It's like gray. It's the boar. It's gamier. This one's way harder. I also got a smaller piece because I didn't want to endure what I had last time.

I'm trying the boar now, which is a grayish green consistency. Hey, the... Oh, yeah. That's terrible. It's, yeah. That's terrible. It's so bad. That's fucking awful. That's not good.

The one that Joe had originally is better than the boar. Yeah, this one's way better. The boar made me want to throw up. It tastes like a boar shit in my mouth. Try this one again. No, thank you. Now, I've never had pate regularly. Is it supposed to taste like the animal shit in my mouth?

No. had pate like regularly what's it supposed to is it supposed to taste like the animal shit in my mouth no um so it's similar consistency but it's fresh meat like it's not processed canned like it doesn't have that processed canned flavor this was uh fresh at some point pate also has like livers and organ meats and stuff in them i mean I've had Oregon meats and they're pretty strong tasting. Yeah, I don't like it. Alright, so the French pate is the worst thing we've had so far. And the beer is not getting it out of my mouth. I don't have enough beer. Yeah, that's one that sticks around.

I don't have enough beer. This fucking pate is camping out like it pays me rent. Open the wine. We're going to move on to a Russian menu. I feel like that's a good bet. The Russian menu next. Rich has been opening everything for me. I've been handing her. It's been great.

I have to show off my big muscles. We're going to... This isn't even a real metal can. It's bending as we touch it. What is that? I don't know. You can't even a real metal can This is like What is that I don't know You can't even read it

If I could guess Those aren't even Latin letters But yeah so Oh it's got a family on the front It's happy it should be good So it's family food Let's see what's going on What is that

That is yellow. Oh, boy. Not like a good yellow, like a curry yellow. I mean, I love curry. Don't get me wrong. But that's not a good yellow. This is puzzling. It smells good.

It looks like baby food. But it shouldn't look like this smelling good. Now, just so we already talked about the worst thing we've had so far. So I'm going to describe something that would taste far worse. Theolian warriors really didn't have a whole lot going for them um the steps are mostly barren they couldn't grow crops they had to carry like salted meat on them for long distances but one thing that got him got him going which actually if you watch the the series um booze traveler he drinks this and vomits, is fermented mare's milk, which is about 3% alcohol once it ferments. They get fucked up on horse milk.

It sounds terrible. Yo, bro, you want to drink some horse milk with me? Yeah. Okay, so I'm opening mine. You fucked up on that utter juice. That's brown. It is a shapeless brown cup, and it smells vaguely like meat. It smells a lot like the pate, actually.

Hold on. Could it be the meat cereal? This might be meat cereal. Okay. So this actually- It's the same thing. I have to say that this looks like it should be chocolate. This should be curry.

No, this should just be baby food. It looks like pureed butternut squash. I didn't taste anything. This doesn't taste like much of much. Yeah, there's nothing. It's got an aftertaste. It's not good. This is better than the French pate.

Yeah, but I don't know what it is. I will say this is better than the French pate simply because I don't want to rip my tongue, but I don't know what it is. I will say this is better than the French pate simply because I don't want to rip my tongue out. I don't know what it is. It's something just pureed, but it's still better. It's got a little bit of spice in it. I don't get any other taste. This is definitely some kind of meat.

I could not tell you. Maybe some tomato basil. I don't fucking know. I could not tell you what this is. Okay, before you look deep into this thing that I'm holding, I want you to come back from a long patrol and be like, fuck, I'm really hungry. So you crack open a steaming hot can of this.

Oh, God. Oh, it's mocha pudding. It looks like chocolate mousse. Yep, keep thinking that. This looks delicious. I don't care. It's not chocolate. But with gelatin in it because it's like way more solid than the baby food that we are just eating.

Oh, it should not smell like that. Okay, so this is definitely some kind of butternut squash. Yours does not smell good. It tastes like some kind of butternut squash. It's not bad. No, I've almost- It tastes like spices more than anything. I'm not going to say it's good, but out of the last three things we've eaten, this is the least offending.

Rich looks like I just killed her parents. Not good. Get it off my fucking... So does that beat the pate for the worst thing we've eaten? Yeah. It's the consistency, right? It's like chopped. It's like fucking pureed meat or something.

I think that might be the forced meat. Because you know what? I had to force myself to eat it. Dude, these dudes in Russia are fucking coming up with shit to feed their soldiers. They're like, hold on, hold on. Let's do this. This is why I'm afraid to fight the Russian army is that they're fueled by this garbage. Yeah, so they're pissed off all the time.

Yeah. I mean, the French army should be mad too that this is the pate that they're getting. All right, so we have a few more cans of meat. Maybe heat it up. It's not so bad. No, heat isn't going to make that any better. So there's three more cans of meat in the Russian one. I'm going to pick one at random.

I'm so ready for the French stuff now. I know. It's probably going to be good. That's why I'm going to try to end with it. Probably going to be. That's very strong. Those are very strong feelings. What do. It's probably going to be good. That's what I'm going to try to end with it. Probably going to be. That's very strong. Those are very strong feelings. What do you mean?

Look at this lasagna. Looks fucking delicious. I'm sure it looks just like that. Yeah, with some parsley on there too. I'm grabbing this unmarked red can of Russian meat. I call this one. Now, there's only one English word on this whole can. And I've got the green one.

Hold on. I want that one. It's got beef on it, so I know what it is. So there's only one Russian, or this whole can is in Russian, obviously, but there's one English word,

which I'm sure is not English, but it is point, I should point out, it just says no. No, it doesn't say that. Yeah. It just says no. Nice. Which tells me

everything I need to know about whatever the fuck this is. Mine says October. Okay, there's an awful lot of liquid in here. Oh god, this looks nasty. So this kind of looks like brains. I can't, there's some vegetables in it. You're scaring me with how much liquid's in here. I don't want

to spill any on me. Yeah, be real careful. There's some vegetable. It looks like some onions. The red stuff might be tomatoes. Oh, fucking horseshit. I'm going to have a shot. Hold on. I need to open up the kukri.

What did you do? Okay. Okay, this is the least defendant thing that we've had so far. I'll actually have a second bite. Ew, that was a big bite. It's not bad. Really? Yeah.

Okay. I couldn't tell you what it is, but it's not bad. What is this? Why is there styrofoam in here? What's that styrofoam? What is this? It feels like styrofoam. It's a very majestic creature that roams.

You should have let me open it, Nick. Literally, you would have done the same thing. Why don't Earth hold on the tab? It literally doesn't want to open. Now, we're going to talk. We're going to jump into the Ottoman Empire for our next fact. That is a layer of fat. Like, solidified fat.

Not like the gel that we were talking about earlier. That is solidified fat. Give it a bite. You chose it. What's the cure for botulism? We're all getting it. Doctors. Good thing we get free healthcare.

It looks like mine has rice in it. That's good. Nick's looks like depression. Or maybe like some... Oh my god. It wouldn't open. It has so much fat congealed on it that he could not open it. It didn't want me to eat it.

Just go ahead and take a bite before I start this next fact. Oh, man. Here you go, Nyx. It should be noted that he is purposely trying not to chew. He's just kind of moving it around his mouth, hoping it just turns to liquid so he can swallow it. So our next food fact comes from the Ottoman Empire in something called the Janissaries. Are you aware of what the Janissaries are?

No. They clean the hallways. Those are custodial engineers, Dick. Now, a Janissary was normally a Christian child that was kidnapped from their family and forced to become Muslim and raise within a martial

society within the Ottoman Empire. They could never marry. They could never engage in commerce, stuff like that. They're slaves, effectively. Now, thankfully, this is merely a side note for the Ottoman Empire, who thankfully never did anything else wrong ever again,

especially not to my family. Never happened. Now, these guys got to eat really, really well. They ate fresh meat, fresh coffee. They got to eat as much as they want. So being in the military, this is about as good as it it got i'm jealous of them right now yeah they definitely whatever they were eating was better than us now the problem was is like they got to eat as much as they wanted which turned out to be a lot and uh the bakers of the ottoman capital simply cannot keep

up with it with like how much bread that they ate and um so they they cut the flour in the bread with dirt and a whole bunch of Janissaries died. Yeah. Hold on, what? Yep, dirt bread. Dirt bread kills people. It's not good, yeah. There's such thing as fucking bacteria in foodborne illnesses. Now, I'm gonna take a bite

of Nick's mystery thing. The one that Joe started with has has peppers and stuff in it. It has actual flavor. The ones that we got, no, not so much. I think this is a potato. Okay, so I'm going to try a bite of Nick's fucking off on us. We got potato, peppers.

This is good. I like this. Yeah, that one's good. That one's better than most of our MREs, honestly. Okay, so this just kind of tastes what I imagine cat food tastes like. Yeah, for sure. Same consistency, too. The mic isn't hungry.

Did you get any of the fat with you? No, I skipped that. Make sure you do that next time. No, thank you. There's not going to be a next time. That's what I did. Now I... I have so many fucking cans of Russian meat in front of me.

I'm going to try what Rich had, and this looks again, gray. It's not bad. It's not as much flavor, I think. That's why it's not as bad. This looks like lentils. Maybe. I don't know. A little bit ricey, a little bit lentilly. Okay.

I just want you all to know that Nick might actually finish this. Rich, yours isn't bad either. But this one's better. No, that one has actual flavors that I can identify, which is key. Which is the first so far. Okay. Okay, second spoonful, a little bad tasting.

I think it's kind of bitter. All right. So, we're going to talk about our good friends and the Continental Army of the Revolutionary United States. Now, George Washington and his army ran into a little bit of a problem. He had no money to feed his army.

This is kind of what happens when a bunch of rich, slave-owning libertarians attempt to start a country without understanding how taxes work. Now, that didn't stop the government from rolling out a specific ration that each soldier would get every single day. In 1775,

the official ration of the Continental Army was one pound of meat, one pound of flour, three pounds of peas or beans per week, one pint of milk, one pint of rice, some beer or cider made out of spruce needles to ward off scurvy, and some molasses. Sometimes they also

got rum. So it's pretty good, honestly. Like, what they just got sounds better than what we've eaten yet. If you guys are interested in any, like, 17th or 18th century cooking, there is a channel on YouTube, which is really good for reenactors as well,

called Jazztown Sons, and he shows how to cook 18th century, 19th, not sorry, not 19th century, but 17th century style cooking. Oh, no. It's awesome. What does it look like? Show me the top. It is just a slate of fat.

Yes. So, so far, the best thing that we've had was a russian um mre yeah an entire russian and it's almost done i'm gonna flay off this layer of fat so i can get to the meat i'm a little bit nervous you're dissecting your lasagna i don't think that's fat i'm a little bit nervous no that's actually noodle yeah that's the fucking noodle shrimp and muscles and things in it that I don't want to eat when they're not fresh. Oh, you're going to eat them. So I'm eating the French lasagna. And let's see what this is like.

I picked the sausages because they're already pretty processed. So how much more process can they get, right? Okay, so. Yeah. This isn't bad. How did I get stuck with this? Okay, why the fuck do my sausages look like fucking... It looks like clam chowder.

Yeah, like what is this shit? Okay, so lasagna is pretty good. I wanted that one, but... Yeah, I made him give it up. Why? Eat your tuna salad and shut the fuck up. Eat your fucking paella. Oh, whatever.

Oh my god. Eat your sausage that isn't sausage. I'm working on it. It's just fucking hot links or whatever. Not bad. Yeah, the main courses for the French one definitely made up for the paella, I suppose. No. Nick is unhappy.

No. It's fucking tuna. Okay, switch. God damn it. This doesn't look good. Now on to, we're going to talk about the Civil War. Much like the Revolutionary War, there was a standard ration. The consistency sucked.

There's a standard ration on paper, anyway. It looks like they would eventually get a ton of food but they never actually got it kind of like the revolution their supply line sucked it was the 1800s they didn't really have this shit down to a science yet instead soldiers would be forced to live on some hardtack biscuits which we have tried

our modern versions today but they were really we jokingly said break breaking our teeth on on hardtack but theirs really was almost inedibly hard um so they would soften it up with um normally some bacon fat but most the bacon they got was rancid so they would eat rotten ass pork with with some crackers yep uh this also happened to be the first war that U.S. soldiers would march off into without being issued booze. Really?

Yeah. In its place would be the most American staple they could find ever since we started chucking tea into a bay as a political protest. Coffee. Oh, wow. It's sour, right? Why is it sour? I don't know it's the tuna

oh I found a hot dog that's the sausage I don't know if anybody is surprised by this but canned paella not good I was expecting gourmet shit personally if I heated this up it probably wouldn't be it's not offending

it doesn't taste great the sausages? Yeah. No, it's the fucking consistency. Consistency? Yeah. I think that's just paella. Okay.

Lasagna, definitely the best thing out of this. Yeah. Now I'm trying. What is the seafood shit? That's the paella. What's the one with the hot dogs? The sausages. Oh, okay.

It's so different. Yeah, exactly. It's got a vomit consistency. Okay. Paella's not good. No, okay. It's so different. Yeah, exactly. It's got a vomit consistency. Okay. Paella's not good. No. Not at all. God, that is a strong-ass shrimp taste. Fuck. Here, take the tuna salad.

No, thank you. Yes. Okay. You have to. What the fuck? Take it all. What are the cubes? Put it in your mouth. You made us eat everything. Tuna salad's better than paella. It is. But it's sour. It is. But it's sour. It is sour. It's just at the end.

Okay, guys, I'm opening the American one, the chili with beans. It's second place of these three? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, because I'd eat the lasagna, then I'd eat that. No, I would have lasagna, then the sausages. Would you? Yeah. No, I wouldn't do that. Lasagna, sausages, tuna, paella.

No. And before all of those, whatever that Russian one with the peppers was. Oh, fuck. I completely forgot. I got to finish this. Gross. It's not that good. How did I know Nick was going to be the one that finished an entire ration?

Go fuck yourself. You almost ate all the lasagna. I ate like a quarter of it. Yeah. Which is not almost all of it. All right. So calm your tits. Between the three of us.

Now. Very. It turns out, as all three of us are either veterans or current soldiers, that giving soldiers a ration of booze and a loaded weapon is not a great idea. What? and a loaded weapon is not a great idea. What? Imagine if we got given booze and even a shot glass of rum in Afghanistan.

We'd immediately be doing back alley deals to try to get as many of those as possible so we'd get drunk. And that's kind of what happened. I've seen it happen. I just had my mom mail me booze, and then I drank it all. All right, so I'm having, what is this,

chili mac, chili and beans? Chili with beans. All right, so I'm having, what is this, chili mac? Chili and beans? Chili with beans. All right, so it looks like poop. Like, I've definitely pooped this out before. It's a little sweet, oddly, and a bit of spice in the back. You know, it's not good. It doesn't taste like a whole lot of much anything, but there's one thing that is

important to note on American MREs, and that is the main course kind of always tastes the same. Always. Like, they just taste like chemistry. The cornbread is good. Have your cornbread with it. Oh, of course.

Chili with cornbread. I don't know why the MRE cornbread is so good. I just don't know why. It's not that good. It's actually pretty good. It's so good. I'm down with it. Okay. No, it's not that good. Go fuck yourself.

I've read The Army for almost a decade. It's been a while. Okay, so yeah. I mean, it doesn't taste like cornbread, though. It just tastes like cake. Yeah, it's super sweet, but that's the point. The only thing separating this from their pound cake is they made it with corn. Very.

Which is the most American thing that you could possibly do is turn everything into a dessert. All right, so chili with cornbread. Yeah, I'm kind of down with it. It's not offending. It doesn't taste good. It doesn't taste bad. The cornbread's good.

Yeah. Now, they started issuing coffee out to Union soldiers. Now, Confederates couldn't do this because they're in the huge blockade that we had over the South. I say we, even though it's almost certain that Rich's family fought for the Confederacy. I can neither confirm nor deny those statements.

I mean, I don't see your family owning any plantations these days, but how do I know that? Mostly just cattle farm, but yeah. Likely story. Now, the Confederacy couldn't get their hands on coffee. It turned into a pretty expensive luxury good. A pound of it cost $1,000 by two years into the war.

Jesus Christ. Yeah. So they roasted like chicory seeds and stuff like that for coffee, which actually ended up being really popular and is, I mean, it kind of tastes like shit. I've had it before. Where have you had it?

I had it at like some really shitty hipster coffee place in Kentucky. Okay. And I was like, I've never had that before, which is weird because Kentucky wasn't in the Confederacy, but they really wanted to be. I mean, modern day, they really wish they were.

Oh, yeah, they really wish they were there. There's so many Confederate flags. It's funny, too, because I went to a Civil War monument there that is like, it's where dugouts used to be, like positions in case an invasion came, and it never happened. There was never a battle there. And they're like, yeah, this is what would have happened have happened but nothing really happened that's the end of the tour but we're proud of it yeah yeah uh now um the the that

kind of turned into something of a local thing and they still serve it in like new orleans but um so at first they would issue out like whole beans to to soldiers and they're like yeah you have to grind these up and roast them yourself which is kind of a huge pain in the ass to do in the field um so instant coffee was invented or at the time was almost hilariously named the essence of coffee nice that's got to be the name of some shitty sit down like hipster place in tacoma the essence of coffee i wouldn't be surprised. Now it was a coffee reduction added in with sugar and milk. Coffee reduction

fuck yes. But as the dawning of the age of the military contracting grift started to come around this time, people quickly began to figure out that the army doesn't actually check this shit and we're just gonna skimp out when it comes to, say, getting new milk.

So they started shipping this shit out with rotten ass milk and getting soldiers sick and dying. So this was before UHT milk, I guess. This is before most things. Oh, God. Food. I mean, food, anything when it came to stabilization and long term keeping wasn't really a thing oh yeah

now just imagine how bad food poisoning sucks because it does now imagine you have to march like 20 fucking miles wearing all wool ugh in like the Georgia heat oh god now it should be noted that booze and American military rations did continue in the Navy all the way up until World War I.

That was where the term Cup of Joe comes from. Because Navy Secretary, and this is true, Josephus Daniels. Josephus? Yep. That's awesome. What? Yeah, because back in the day, America's... That's not a real name?

You know, people say that American white people have dumb names now. Josephus. Josephus. I've never even heard of that. I mean, like, Bo Cephas, but Joe. You've heard of Bo Cephas? Yes. Why?

Because it's a very famous name. It's like one of the- Who's famous that has that? One of the outlaw country singers. I can't remember exactly who right now. Bo Cephas. It's like. So he's popular in two counties of eastern Texas.

No, it's like Hank Williams or something. He's really good at the live bars. Yeah. Hank Williams or something. Call himself Bo Cephas. Like, I can't remember exactly who, but I'm pretty sure it's him. Has a lot of really opinionated songs on Cottonfields, probably. Anyway, it was Josephus who ordered the booze to be banned from ships and was replaced with coffee

and the sailors began to call their coffee a cup of joe because they fucking hated it they didn't want to call it josephus nobody wants to call anything josephus josephus is i didn't even get called that to be made fun of i just got josephine honestly i'd rather be that than Josephus. Another coffee fact. Josephus sounds like an STD. American soldiers invented the Cafe Americano. Now, they did this when American soldiers invaded Italy during World War II,

and their shitty taste in American coffee combined with their first taste of actual Italian espresso, it was too strong for them to handle, so they watered it down. Hence is born the drink that I get every single day I leave the house. That is actually kind of awesome. I love that fact. They had to dilute it with water. It only took us almost an hour to get to the first thing that you've cared about. This table is starting to smell like shit.

It is covered in food waste. We made a big mistake not bringing a trash can or a trash bag or something up here because there's just fucking canned food everywhere. We will do our dessert, and then I will close it out with one last food story. Now, the Russian one is a chocolate bar. At least I think it's chocolate. Well, it's camouflaged, so that's cool. To be determined. It is weird that their package is camouflaged.

Yeah, everything. Yeah. The French one is a chocolate bar, I believe, right? The French one? No, the French one's rice pudding. One of them's rice pudding, but the other one's something else. Yeah, this one. Yeah, we got rice pudding here.

It should be noted, it, it's not like a faceless military bag of pudding. It's like, this looks like something you'd buy at 7-Eleven. And the American one is fudge brownie. Don't open it. Alright, so I get to have what looks like the most normal dessert first

in the pudding. I'm probably contaminating our taste test here. Is this fucking jerky? Oh, man. That is a very... This looks like somebody molded their shit out of the toilet into a fucking bar. The Russian chocolate bar looks like a shit you take

after a long night of drinking. Yeah, and then you just fucking mold it and you go, here, Russian fucking dessert bar. Okay. American fudge brownie. Delicious. French pudding. Also good.

Nick's face does not say good. The fuck is this? For the Russian one. It's not chocolate. It's not? No. Is it meat? No.

I think it's like prunes or some shit it's probably it's their one to make you poop like they have the gum what the fuck is that dates Joe will love it dates are the shit

oh yeah this is the shit. Now, the Russian pudding. Holy shit, I've never had this one. The French pudding is definitely not American because you can tell they did not add a ton of sugar to it. It's just sweet enough to be a dessert. This one's got sugar on it. All right, so I'm going to eat this date bar.

You'll like it. It fucking tastes terrible. Oh, it's good. Oh, my God. Dates are delicious. I hate dates. That's why you can go fuck yourself. Here's a brownie. We need your fucking

healthy dates and eat this fat brownie. Like an American. And the brownie is the most tasty. Yeah. It doesn't taste like a good brownie, but it tastes like a brownie. I think it's because I ate this last, but the rice pudding, no.

What do you find so objectionable about it? I think it's just because I had so much other flavor in my mouth from the chocolate brownie and from the date bar that when I ate it, the lack of flavor was fucking jarring. I had it

first, so that's probably why I had the best opinion of it. It tastes like a European dessert I would expect. It's not bad. No. It's something I'd eat if I was hungry, yeah. None of these are bad. Alright, I'm handing out pate de fruit.

Or nougat out of fruit. God. You know, I feel so bad for Nate. He doesn't have to cut out so many just random chewing noises. I think that they really make the podcast, honestly. Don't do that. I was eating. Sorry.

Nate, don't cut out anything. Unless Joe says a real name. I cut that out. Unless Joe says my real name. I cut that out. Unless Rich says some real racist Texas shit. Whoa, whoa. Now they're going to think I did and that they cut it out or some shit. They expect that from Texas. Okay, this tastes really weird.

Oh, what the fuck? Hold on. Is this a candy bar? It's like, what is this shit that we fuck? Hold on. Is this a candy bar? It's like, what is this shit that we made? It's almost like... From Narnia. What? From Narnia?

Yes. You've been to Narnia before? No. Turkish Delights? Yes, Turkish Delights. That's what it tastes like. How dare you bring that up in my podcasting room? That's what it tastes like.

When I was in elementary school and we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we made Turkish Delight in my class, and that's what this tastes like. It's fruit pate or whatever. I think there's raisins in this. I would like to give a shout out to the French for not calling it Turkish Delight because I just don't like that. What is this?

Turkish Delight. Now, have either one of you ever heard of the embalmed beef scandal? No. No. Sounds terrible. So, let me get your bar. I ate it all.

How the fuck? We're supposed to be trying it. Open your mouth. That is really weird. This one is interesting, this wafer nougat thing. I'll eat all of them. They taste good. Now, the embalmed beef scandal is a time when U.S. military contractors

nearly killed the American Expeditionary Force during the Spanish-American War. Wow. So in 1898, the U.S. and Spain went to war as america decided to get in on some of that sweet sweet imperialism overseas problem was the u.s had no real rationing system in place for the military it was this weird strange inter-period phase uh between state volunteer militias and a standing army as we recognize it today like the america really didn't get one of those world war one like uh there was like the first nebraska volunteer regiment still like fighting the spanish-american war right like only really in world war one we're like yeah that's dumb yeah all it goes back to uh like the revolutionary war when we had a deep, deep distrust for a strong standing army because Britain reasons, sure, whatever.

Fucking T. Which is why we kept getting stomped by Britain and we failed to invade Canada because we had a bunch of idiot-ass militiamen. The U.S. Secretary of War, Russell Alger, quickly got some contracts signed with very little haggling with major U.S. beef suppliers. Now, I should point out that Alger was a businessman himself, and this is before the U.S. had literally any food regulations whatsoever. If you were selling beef to the U.S. Army, what would be your company name? Government Beef Co.

We got your beef. i don't know you seem like you had one on deck there nick what is it no i just wanted to know i would name it the most faceless fucking thing you could possibly imagine because nobody's gonna think anything bad like you're not gonna have a high opinion of government beef co u.s beef That's already a company. Your mom's a company. All right. Congrats on her incorporation. Now, it's about time she makes some... You know, I've been playing Call of Duty since it came out. And if all those kids are true, she gets fucked a lot. So it's about time she makes some money.

Well, you know what? Good for her. Yeah. I mean, strong woman. Second of all, whatever the fuck are the sweat lords that keep killing me on Call of Duty will fucking find you. Because I'm not good at the game anymore.

It reminds me of J&C on Bob Strike Back where he prints off the list of people who left bad reviews and went to their house. Like, are you dick lord 5'5"? And just start beating the shit out of them. Now, the contract, this contract,

which I already remember included zero regulation when it came to the quality of the food, also included no oversight whatsoever when it came to like... You don't need it.

Like the government's gonna like check and like, hey, how's the beef canning coming? Nope, none of that. How's our food? So cans of beef were quickly sent to Cuba to support the American army.

Also went to the Philippines. But the guys in the Philippines didn't really report any problems. By the time it showed up, it was already rotten or chemically adulterated to the point it was deadly to consume. This is already a problem, but thousands of American soldiers were already weakened by yellow fever, malaria, shit. Already pretty deadly diseases. So the ones that were kind of on the edge dropped fucking dead from their

beef. Really? Yeah. An army doctor... That's why I choose not to have any beef. I don't like violence. Definitely whatever we ate today was never an actual living thing. It was all played in a lab. I tend to agree with that. The cereal bar is fucking delicious.

Holy shit. Dude, try that. Let me try the cereal bar. You really got to use some jaw muscles in that one. It's lemony. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I love lemon. And chocolate bar.

It's lemony. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I love lemon. And chocolate bar. Now, there's a doctor who's taking care of all these people who got sick from the meat in Cuba. He said, quote, The meat looked normal, but had an odor similar to a dead body after being injected with formaldehyde and tastes like decomposing boric acid.

Yum. Drop some chocolate in your station. I don't know why he knows what decomposing boric acid. Yum. Drop some chocolate in your station. I don't know what, I don't know why he knows what decomposing Bork acid tastes like. I was just about to ask that. Like,

why would you know that flavor? It's like when somebody says, that tastes like shit. I'm like, yeah. I mean, okay. I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.

You eat pieces of shit for breakfast? Just decomposing Bork acid is so fucking specific. Like, your senses, your smell, your... I'm going to go on the limb here and assume this guy's accidentally eaten a dead body.

Maybe. I had some of that long pig. Your smelling is very, very connected with your taste buds, so that's why you can kind of say that tastes like shit and have knowledge of it. I mean, we've all walked into a bathroom after somebody blew it up and you kind of tasted a little. Yeah.

Like you eat as much with your- And you have to figure out what they ate. Yeah. You eat as much with your nose as you do with your tongue. What's going on? Yeah. Yeah.

Now, General Nelson Miles said, quote, there is no life or nourishment in the meat. And I don't know why I find that- There is no life? Or even if you had good meat. I don't- I don't ever want life in my meat. I don't know why I find it... There is no life. Or even if you had good meat. I don't... I don't ever want life in my meat.

I don't know why I find it that sentence so incredibly hilarious. Like, I'm going to make a shirt for our podcast that says, there is no life or nourishment in this meat. Like, this sounds like something that the Nihilist Arby's account

on Twitter would say. It's like, there is no life or nourishment in the meat. No gods, no leaders. No gods, no masters, no meat. Nobody got in trouble, because of course they didn't. The meat kept getting made, and people kept dying. Now, if you think that the U.S. Secretary of War, Elger, would get in, I don't know, trouble. Maybe even get fired.

Nope, he's remembered as a hero in a state. The U.S. Secretary of War, Elder, would get in, I don't know, trouble. Maybe even get fired. Nope, he's remembered as a hero in a state. Now, I'm going to let you guess what state it is. I will say not Texas, because I know I pick on Texas a lot. So a southern state, then? Nope. Northern. Ohio. He was born in Ohio, but that's not where he was.

That was a pretty good guess. But he was not famous there. He was a former governor and hero. There's a monument and a city named after him. Connecticut. Michigan. I should have known. Go fuck yourself. And I had driven through that town.

Wait, so he was born in Ohio and then famous in Michigan? Yeah, which is like nuts, right? Yeah. And remember, there's people that voted for him to be governor who definitely remember the time that Michigan invaded Ohio and started shooting right? Yeah. And remember, there's people that voted for him to be governor who definitely remember the time that Michigan invaded Ohio and started shooting people. Yeah. Oh, man.

And yeah, that is... I'm going to have some weird poops, guys. I don't... That's the end of the episode. I don't know what else to say. I'm not going to think about how this is all going to come out of me. Just that... Okay, wait, wait.

Hopefully it comes up the same way it came in. I can just get it out of the way. Oh yeah, we gotta pick which one was the best. Overall. Best starter. Best starter. So the Russian one was the strange cheese.

I actually kind of like the mild flavor of the Russian one. Now the French one loses immediately flavor of the Russian one. Now, the French one loses immediately. Because the pate made me gag. Yeah. Every. Like, both of them.

Yeah, definitely. It's staring at me from where it sits right now. Somehow getting grayer. From smell and taste, it was bad. This whole table just smells. The mouthfeel makes me want to commit suicide. getting grayer from smell and taste it was bad this whole table just smells the mouth feel makes me want to commit suicide just just go going into this we all like bet we we had our bets on the french ones we we all thought the french one was gonna be better they seriously disappointed yeah

i would say i'm i'm saying the russian one's the dark horse because i i expected every single can that i opened to be fucking abhorrent and like a war crime. No, but this one surprised me. No, I think the Russian one, I mean,

obviously the, now the American MRE, I will say still tasted the best. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I hate to say it, but I mean,

I, I'm shocked. Like I thought the French one was going to kick our ass. It definitely didn't. I thought they were going to blow us out of the water. I thought the Russian one was going to be completely impalatable and it beat the french one so for the past few probably like six years um in the field like every time i go to the field i completely avoid eating mres or army food i literally live on cereal and pb and j And that's just because being deployed for 12 months with the same fucking 12 meals as far as UGRAs

and then the same MREs, you just get so fucking sick of it. Yeah, there's actually a word for that. It's called menu fatigue. Yeah. My mom had it. So I would rather just subsist on PB&J. No, but she could really pour up a really good cereal.

She could pour a mean cereal. Our moms can work together. My mom didn't cook. I didn't eat. So my point is, this is the first time in a very long time that I've had an MRE. Yeah, I mean, the MRE, and it's shocking. You'd think that, I don't know, Um, the right, the ration that has to feed like almost the largest army, the Russian army is bigger,

but, um, that had, that has to, uh, do as much work as an MRE does would be like, they'd skimp on it. They'd make it cheaper,

like shittier. But I mean, it definitely tastes, I'll say it tastes the most processed. This might change it for me. The MRE or the taste of most processed. I think the MRE tastes the most processed. Hold on, this might change it for me. The MRE or the tastes the most processed? I think the MRE tastes the most processed. Oh, for sure.

I disagree. Because they all taste the same. They all taste the same, but the pate... No, the pate has got awful. And a couple of the Russian dishes tasted super fucking processed. That's just traditional Russian cuisine, you fucking Xenophobe.

It's very fresh. That's actually how... Hold on. This might change it for me for the French MRE. The French MRE does have a fold-out spork. Oh, everything is better. It's the size of one finger. It really is. So Nick just folded out

the foldable spork that came with the French MRE. It's very tactical. Very. We kind of have a consensus in our ranking. American first, Russian second, French third. Because of familiarity? No, I think the dessert tasted the best.

Yeah. It did. I think the Russian main course tasted better. One of them. Yeah, this one. The one that I had. The red one. We're just going to go because you can't tell which one it is. I agree with that. The one that I had. The red one. We're just going to go because you can't tell which one it is. I agree with that. And even like

the tuna salad wasn't bad. The tuna salad was the French. Was it? Yeah. But it was bad. It wasn't the worst. It wasn't the worst but it was not good.

I'll say that since we're comparing one meal to that I think the Russian main course is better. The dessert, the Americans is better. Oh, for sure. That fudge brownie was bomb.

And I think for starters, it's kind of, the cracker's better. But the cheese tasted like what I imagine Chester Cheeto comes. After you say that, I am reluctant to say this. The Russian cheese is the one

that I actually prefer out of all three. I don't think the Russian one was the worst. I think the French one was worse. The French one was definitely Chester Cheeto cum. I bet that man is way more flavorful than that. I feel like his cum more looks like the American one, but it tastes like the French one. That's diversity right there.

After all, that's what this podcast is about. It's got to have that radioactive orange. It's the real chest. Oh, God. He's dangerously cheesy. But let's go for the real MVP here. The fucking beer and wine

that cleansed our palate after each awful fucking bite. I have chugged a... How big is this beer? In ounces? 24. A full pint of beer. And I can still taste paella.

Yeah, that's why I'm going with this nice red we have. So, if anybody in the French military is listening to us, I deeply apologize for what you have to eat when you're in the field. Sucks to be you.'re in the field. Um, sucks to be you. Yeah.

Uh, Americans have the best MRE, but fuck, I guess that's because we spend so much time in other people's country. Uh, whoops. No, actually Russians don't have that excuse anymore.

They're catching up on the imperialism game. What up guys? See you in Syria. Uh, that's our episode, uh, that you, for some reason paid for.

Us chewing random things. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Thank you to my lovely co-hosts for punishing yourself with me. Never again. Now we're going to actually go eat actual dinner. I'm lovely. I don't even know if I can right now.

I don't know if it's going to... I think I have to go shit. You have to go take a paella Yes And now whatever you give to the show Thank you for that It goes to production costs It goes to buying foreign MREs It goes to buying books

And over 90% of it now Or about 90% I think Is going to the Kurdish Red Crescent to help what little we can with the humanitarian crisis going on in Rojava. So thank you, everybody, for that. And we will never do this episode again. Unless you send us some weird MRAs.

You know what? I take it back. Send us Canadian, send us UK, send me whatever the fuck you want and we'll eat it and we'll shit on it. Let's do this. But never again, Pate. Never again. Yeah, don't ever send us any French

shit. That was terrible. Until next time, remember the new motto for the podcast, there's no life or nourishment in the meat.