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To make it in the United States Military, there’s a lot you’ll need.
Courage.
Endurance.
Fortitude.
Grit.
Nuts.
Eggs.
Flour.
Sugar.
Cocoa.
A whisk.
An oven set to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
A—sorry maybe I should have clarified.
When I said “make it in the military” the “it” was brownies.
This is how you make brownies in the military.
Sorry for any confusion.
Unfortunately, though, I can’t actually tell you the army’s whole brownie recipe,
because if I did it would take almost as long as it takes a YouTube tutorial to explain
how to use a toaster—and that’s because the military’s brownie recipe is 26 pages
long.
Now, you probably have three questions: why does the US military have its own brownie
recipe, why is it 26 pages long, and, most importantly, if Jesus was alive today, would
he make a celebrity guest appearance on David Dobrik’s vlog?
Nobody’s been brave enough to ask these questions, but for the second one, why is
it 26 pages long, the answer, of course, is the same as why most online recipes are long:
before you get to the actual instructions, you have to scroll through a multi-page personal
essay about the author’s first high school crush or whatever—except in this case, instead
of reminiscence of teenage romance, it’s a web of military bureaucracy, ingredient
specifications, and multiple paragraphs explaining what eggs are.
The recipe starts off as all great works of literature should: with a list of other, longer
documents that you’ll need to reference, including “QQ-A-1876 - Aluminum foil,”
“FED-STD-595 – Colors,” and of course “Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time”
which isn’t necessary for the brownies, but which will take you on a fantastical journey
through space, time, and feminist empowerment.
The recipe then proceeds to eat up much of its length just giving really, really specific
explanations of what ingredients can be used and how they must have been stored.
For example, it doesn’t just say eggs, it says this.
It doesn’t just say “walnuts,” it says this.
It’s kind of like how YouTube doesn’t just say “every once in a while we’re
going to take your ad money away just to show you who’s really in power,” it says this.
After you’ve finished reading the world’s most obnoxious shopping list, you’ll get
to the actual recipe, which it turns out isn’t all that complicated, it’s just this.
But once you’ve made the brownies, buckle up, because you’re only on page eight.
Now you get to experience the most fun part of baking: meticulously inspecting and testing
your brownie for various specifications and defects, including moisture content, weight,
firmness, and rodent infestation!
Finally, the remaining pages are spent on extremely specific vacuum-seal packaging instructions
that I won’t get into because they’re too boring even for our channel, which once
spent an entire video talking about printers.
But after all this work: procuring very specific ingredients, carefully baking, extensively
testing, and painstakingly packaging, you will at long last be greeted by a batch of
brownies that are, according to people who have tried them, absolutely disgusting!
Now, the reason why these brownies have to be made in such a specific way—and have
to taste so bad—is because they specifically are meant to be part of what’s called an
MRE: an extra long-lasting, extra durable, extra bad tasting meal issued by the military
as a ration.
MRE stands for “Meal, Ready to Eat,” but over the years military members have hated
them so much they’ve garnered a number of dis-affectionate nicknames, including the
classic “Meals Rejected by Everyone,” the somewhat offensive, “Meals Rejected
By Ethiopia,” the slightly-more refined “Meals Rarely Edible,” and the oddly-specific
and deeply-hurtful, “Meals woRse than thE jokes on half as interesting.”
Each one usually consists of an entrée, a side dish, a cracker, a spread, a dessert,
a candy, a beverage, a seasoning, a flameless ration heater, and, of course, a link for
three months free of ExpressVPN.
Now, while MREs may taste bad, they do excel in the other key element of classic French
cooking: ability to withstand being dropped from very high heights, as each MRE is required
to be able to survive a parachute drop from 1,250 feet or insert metric conversion here
and a non-parachute drop from 98.
I know: it sounds delicious.
Perhaps more importantly, MREs must also be able to last three and a half years at 81
°F, and be able to handle temperature variations from -60 °F to 120 °F. To that end, each
MRE is equipped with something called a TTI—a Tiny T.I…or wait, sorry a time and temperature
indicator—to show how long it’s been kept at various temperatures and what that means
for its edibility.
The TTI is a reddish sticker with a ring on it—If the circle inside the ring is lighter
than the ring itself, the food is good.
If it’s the same color, it’s most likely ok.
If it’s darker, it’s probably bad—basically, it’s the same color-guide that the TSA uses
for people.
Generally speaking, MREs last longer at colder temperatures and shorter at higher temperatures,
in patterns that are roughly laid out by this chart, although the chart isn’t perfect,
but you know what, imperfect charts deserve love too.
There are a few reasons MREs last so long, which can be simplified into lack of water,
thorough cooking, and sterilized packaging.
First of all, most of the things that make food go bad: bacteria, yeast, and mold, need
water to survive, so MREs are intentionally cooked to have minimal water content, plus
most contain a lot of salt, which is naturally hydrophilic—meaning it soaks up water—which
also means it kills bacteria by sucking the moisture out of them.
Second of all, MREs are cooked at a relatively high temperature, killing off any bacteria,
yeast, mold, or flavor the ingredients naturally have—and finally, the food is placed in
sterilized, vacuum-sealed packaging so no bacteria, yeast or mold has a chance to get
in.
Now, MREs are pretty good at keeping bacteria out, but you know what they’re really bad
at keeping out: hackers.
That’s why, if you want to browse the web securely, instead of putting your computer
in a sterilized, vacuum-sealed bag, you should use ExpressVPN.
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