WWI Rations

[kingkaiser]

This website has some really neat stuff.

www.reprorations.com/

[oskar2ndchev]

Pretty cool, can't vouch for the authenticity but it's a good idea. I used to order some of the German WWI stuff. That's a whole area that could use some research (in English, preferably). :-)

[1886lebel]

The French ones he is offering are part of the vivres de réserves ("reserve rations") which were composed of non-perishable provisions. These were issued in a field package (i.e. paper wrappers or cloth baggies) and in 1918 were packed in the rectangular tin.
I have a complete set of these I use for displays, not to eat as they are about 10 years old when he first did these with the chocolate tins.
Patrick

[oskar2ndchev]

I'd like some singe please... ;D

That's "monkey meat" for you non-French people... :-)

[1886lebel]

I will bring you some when I come out in November, I will watch you eat it with a ;D on your face
Patrick

[kingkaiser]

Sept 16, 2011 18:44:52 GMT -8 oskar2ndchev said:

Pretty cool, can't vouch for the authenticity but it's a good idea. I used to order some of the German WWI stuff. That's a whole area that could use some research (in English, preferably). :-)

Curiosity got the best of me, and I tried out the German stuff. It's pretty good, but you would have to be pretty hungry to eat it on a daily basis. The hartkeks are fairly dry and tasteless. The fleisch extract is a bullion cube. The rinder fleischkonserve resembles Dinty Moore Stew, without the vegetables, with less meat, and with more gravy. Both the fleisch extract and rinder fleischkonserve are bit salty. The coffee ration is a bit hard to use. It's not instant coffee, nor is it the kind that is made in a percolator. It's supposed to be made by boiling it in hot water. Unless you don't mind the grounds, you'll need something to strain the coffee. The ginger candy resembles gummy bears, but it's a bit harder, stickier, and chewier.

Overall, these rations seem to be fairly authentic. I believe that these are the iron (or emergency) rations, meant to be eaten whenever the field kitchens couldn't get up to the troops. Eating these rations everyday would quickly become tedious. Although, I understand that the fare supplied by the field kitchens was often not much better.

Repro-Rations has quite an extensive line of WWII German items. A while ago, I contacted them, and I asked if they had any plans to expand their German WWI line. I was told that they would like to offer more WWI German items. Unfortunately, right now, they haven’t been able to locate any more good original examples to use for replicating. So, indeed, this area does need a lot of research! However, they mentioned that they do plan to offer WWI German tobacco items, and that these should be on their website sometime in the future. I don't know if these will be different from those already offered by Historic Replications.

[hocfutue]

I've seen their US and Brit stuff in use in the field--and was disappointed by the look of the fonts used as well as the weight of the paper. In general, it's stuff you could do at home (or at work) with MS Word, a laser printer, and a paper cutter. You can pick the food up at your local grocery and rewrap.

Just my $0.02.

[oskar2ndchev]

For US rations, I have developed a number of labels based off of scans that someone back east initially sent me. The tricky part was sizing the labels to fit the corned beef cans- they're trapezoid-shaped. Unfortunately, the canned corned beef in the correct key configuration are getting harder to find since most brands have gone to a pull-top configuration. A lost of the other ration labels are simply civilian ones and they're pretty easy to find.

There is a guy who actually bakes up the US hard bread to the correct dimensions and the they're pretty edible.