1993 Croatian Special Dry Ration Review Freeze Dried Recon Patrol MRE Tasting Test

This rare and expensive ration relic features an all meat freeze dried main course, four beverages, various snacks, water purification tablets, salt tabs, and matches.
It was an innovative, fairly high tech, unique, and well made ration that was built to last. It could have easily doubled as a survival ration as well - lasting much longer than just a day if need be. Truly a rare look at something that we probably won't see again any time soon.

I do autographs and provide vintage P38 can opener rewards on Patreon.

Buy Nice Hiss shirts and ones that say Nice or my favorite: Gettin Down with Biscuits Brown - all here on my merch site.

To send a Military Ration for review, my exact mailing information is:
Steve1989
3616 Harden Blvd
360
Lakeland, FL 33803

[blakecaccavale]

"Let's check out this instant energy tea."

*opens packet, revealing something that looks like a dead colony of ants in some decomposed animal remains*

"NIIICE!"

[neonaffliction]

Hello from Croatia Steve. This ration was made during homeland war and probably as rare as an unicorn.
Nice, mkay.

[JamesScott-fl]

Watched your videos right before i got cancer, during treatment, during false remission, during second treatment, and now im watching you while bald-post bone marrow transplant. Thanks for being a mainstay and keeping my sanity. Love your international reviews especially so this was a treat.

[gary]

It's amazing that Steve can find stuff like this. This would never have seen the light of the day for the general public were it not for his work and dedication.

[legacyShredder]

A Croatian MRE from 1993, even under the best circumstances has lived an extremely hard life.

[nb]

If Steve says the coffee is "horrendous" it would most certainly incapacitate or possibly kill an ordinary man.

[brenthooton]

3:00 That matchbook cover is incredible and easily the best part of that ration... the drawing of an anthropomorphic matchook celebrating its victory over a Zippo lighter.

[someone]

My dad brought a bunch of these when he came back from the front in 1994. I remember my sister and I splitting the chocolate. These were made during the war in Croatia and were packaged in December 1993.

[yesfinallygot]

wow this really brings back fond memories of my time in Croatian Army (Hrvatska kopnena vojska - HKoV). That was my favorite chocolate bar, shame to see it did not last all the years. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Steve!

[Bunnythoughts]

Goes incognito for years… then comes back with content after content after content. We salute you Steve!

[Saanichian]

This is one of only two or three creators whose videos I must watch as soon as I get home from work.

[ISashaI]

Hell ya! Croatian here, What a treat!!!! Homeland war era ration, a lot of history here.

[nordfreiheit]

Nice! The balkan war period is so fascinating to me, and I love seeing these rations preserved and explored for us. It humanizes the experiences of the regular soldiers.

[toadelevator]

It's only been up on YT 15 minutes, and ALREADY I am confident that this is the best review of Croatian Special Dry Ration I will ever see. Big like! Nice!

[ngek]

My dad was a UN peacekeeper with 3VP back in 93' shared tons of stories and pictures from his time over there, one sticks out of a small house that was destroyed that had a little old lady living in it and my father and a few others helped her find all of her remaining belongings and set her up with some CAF rations. Now I get to carry the torch in not only his regiment but the same damn battalion as him current day. This video made my day seeing something from a warzone my father was in. Poor souls in every war past and present may you find peace.

[douglasw.]

Steve’s shelf he stands near is his equivalent of Ashen’s brown couch. It never changes, which is kind of comforting.

[madkoala]

Translation for 2:09:
Special dry meal (Specijalni suhi obrok)
Name of the product (Naziv proizvoda):
Desert chocolate (desertna čokolada)
Dehydrated meat block (mesna kocka dehidrirana)
Candy "Limač" or "poni" (bomboni Limač i Poni) Context: old school fruit flavoured hard candy, just this particular brand was long gone after 90s.
Ponita Context: really popular form of instant energy drink in this part of Europe, just here in Croatia is mostly referred as "Cedevita" after the most popular brand of said drink made by "Atlantic group"
Poni čaj Context: Dont know what is that for a tea, even my father has hard time remembering it.
Chewing gum Wrigley's (guma za žvakanje WRIGLEY'S)
Kitchen salt (kuhinjska sol)
Izosan 1 (pills for disinfection of water for drinking)/(tablete za dezifekciju vode za piće)
Franck kaffee (instant coffee)/ (Instant kava) Context: Our really old coffee making brand/producer (dates to 1892.), its mostly associated as best quality coffee (and is much more expensive)
Sugar (šećer)
Asepsoleta (antiseptic wet tissue)

Packaged: December 93 (PAKIRANO: Prosinac 93)

[ozzuneoj]

I'd like to take a minute to appreciate how Steve changes the pitch of the "dings" when he taps the spoon on a glass so that it makes a little song. Such a weird little touch that is probably fun to do when editing the video together, and it always makes me smile. He's been doing this for a really long time and I haven't really seen it mentioned in comments before (not that it hasn't been).

Anyway, thanks for all the interesting things you do with these videos, and thank you for continuing to use your synth music and photos for the intro and outro. That synth sound immediately brings back memories of PC game music from the mid 90s. Love it! :)

[Ehstes]

Steve your music is always fire, keep it up.

[maxtyler]

Steve is the ultimate hobbiest. Knowledgeable, savvy collector, etc. In another world/time Steve would have the most rad model train setup