I was sitting eating my lubnese bread with the chicken curry and watchign malcom in the middle when I began to remember why the aluminium packaging seems so familiar. Standard Army Ration!
You see I was an army brat. My dad spent his whole life since his 16 in the army up until his retirement. He was in the army lobger than he was anything else. The army took that 16 year old orphan and made him into a man, a respectable senior officer, a wonderful husband and a loving father. He was all that I look up upon while I was growing up.
Back to Stanrad Army Ration, my dad used to go away on patrol missions deep in the jungle. Back when the days the communist party still looms our jungle, our trrops are frequently on high alert patroling every corners of the country. After weeks away, dad would come home to his family and I as a small boy would wait for his return and his Standard Army Rations.
What's an Army ration? it's food, packed in green cans with huge prints that read "HAK KERAJAAN", those days meant to be carried in soldier's backpack as food supply. It's not only food but there's also soap, chocolate, and a lot other stuff that a little boy would just die for!
My favourite was the canned beef/ chicken curry. If you ever wondered hwo it taste like, it taste like your best curry, rich and creamy but the prosess to preserve the food made the bones and meat to be brittle. Well sort of like how a mackarel bones are like in canned mackarels. Soft and brittled. Yummie.. Don't ask me why but I was so into army ration back then. I remmeber me and oterh army brats would bring their father's ration whenever we goes of camping. Well I guess we were imagining that we're patroling some jungle somewhere as well.
Anyway during the end of 80's the canned rations were replaced with dehydrated version to lessen the weight that each soldier has to carry. Sounds like a good idea since significant amount of weight for canned food came from the tin can. Convnient too, you just unpack the freeze-dried food from the packaging and add hot water or boil them in hot water for afew minutes. Kinda like your average instant noodle. But it's teriible. Believe me it was much worst than eating wet hay!
Anyway the army corp finally gave up on that ration and in early 90's worked with Brahim Food and came out with a prepared meal in aluminium packets. These packets were green and still have "HAK KERAJAAN" printed on them would be boiled in hot water and the heat will be transfered yada yada yada and in 10 minutes, good hot food! Here's how those army ration loosk like. I couldn't find one with "HAK KERAJAAN" but the picture shows what US army soldier carries with them today. Looks a lot like what our troops are carrying, glad to see that actually. We're at par with world superpowers when it comes to Army Ration :P
Interestingly I found a little history behind Army Ration of the world. Seems that even the Sioux had standard army ration while they were fighting other tribes hundreds of years ago.
This food [pemmican], called wasna by the Dakota Sioux, was made by pounding buffalo meat into shreds, mixing dried berries or wild choke cherries into the meat, stuffing it into a hide bag, and sealing the bag with melted tallow. The choke cherries were usually pounded, stones and all, into the dried buffalo meat. Wild plums, gooseberries, and currants were also used in the pemmican and it has been asserted that grasshoppers were included in some recipes-probably to increase the range of amino acids available or otherwise fortify the product
source
A cambodian refugee once told my mom a story of how they packed dried rice cakes while traveling from cambodia to thailand and to malaysia trying to escape Pul-Pot regime.
Anyway reminising about those HAK KERAJAAN tin cans makes me miss those rations, especially the chicken curry ones and very very sweet pineapple jam and very very stale biscuits. :P
No comments:
Post a Comment