French MRE Taste Test: Military Rations Review

Exploring French MREs

• 💡 The hosts conduct a taste test of French MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat), comparing them to American versions.
• 🎯 The video is sponsored by AG1, a daily health drink, and includes a brief mention of its benefits and a promotional offer.
• 🧠 French MREs are presented as a more elaborate and "fancy" option compared to typical military rations.

Unboxing the MRE Kit

• 📦 A full French MRE box contains two ready-cooked dishes, a starter, drink mixes, snacks, and dessert.
• 🍽️ Items discovered include Salade de Gesiers (gizzard salad), instant coffee, cocoa, chocolate, soup, caramel wafers, and various bars.
• ⚡ The kit also features an ISO technique tonique (isotonic drink), protein bar, and fruit bar, highlighting the comprehensive nature of the French rations.

Cooking the Gizzard Salad

• 🔥 The first entree to be prepared is red quinoa gizzard salad, which requires a specific heating method.
• ⚠️ Unlike American MREs, French MREs use a metal stand and a solid fuel tablet for cooking, requiring caution due to heat and fumes.
• ⚙️ The cooking process involves lighting a fuel tablet and placing the can on a foldable metal stand, allowing the gizzards to cook throughout the show.

Tasting the Entrees

• 🍖 The pork risotto with mushrooms is described as having a lot of flavor, though the pork tasted more like "flavorless chicken" to one host.
• 🦆 The Superior Duck Cassoulet is highly praised, with its rich flavor and various meats, making one host consider joining the French military.
• 🦐 Asian style chicken and shrimp receives mixed reviews, with a "metallic" or "can taste" attributed to the shrimp, making it the least favorite.
• 🌭 Strasbourg Sausages and Pasta are compared to Vienna sausages and found to be soft, lacking the "knack" sound expected from the sausage.
• 🌿 The gizzard salad has a "minty" or "licoricey" flavor, which is unexpected but not necessarily bad, placing it in the middle of the rankings.

Overall Impressions & Other Items

• ✅ The duck cassoulet is deemed the best entree, highlighting the high standards of French military food.
• 🍬 Other items sampled include a hard cracker, a "French cake nipple" (rum cake), a protein bar, and a strawberry jam (mistaken for yogurt) which was surprisingly good.
• 🏆 The overall consensus is that French MREs offer a diverse and generally higher-quality culinary experience compared to expectations for military rations.