IMP‘s

[Sharpey]

If they ever take away my beans and weiners, I think I will have to quit the Army! As for the Salmon, fish in a bag does not sound appealing to me. Being a Newf and not liking fish is one thing, but fish in a bag? Yuk! Plus a stinking Salmon stake doesn‘t seem very tactical anyway.

 

[portcullisguy]

Only slightly off-topic ... on the way back from our BMQ‘s first range weekend, we were fed "lunch boxes" for the bus trip back.

This little beauty had two sandwiches, an apple or orange, a fruit cup tin, a milk, a juice, and something else.. cookie or something, can‘t remember. Condiments included mustard and mayo, salt & pepper.

The milk was 3 days expired! Some people drank it! Mine looked like it was well on its way to becoming cottage cheese, and I gave it a wide berth. Everything else was edible and filling, especially because I had one of those camping spice containers with 6 spices in it (salt, pepper, garlic salt, cayenne, papkria, curry -- I highly recommend this bit of kit!)... the lunch box wasn‘t as good as the "in-flight meal" on the way up to Borden.. we stopped at McDonalds!

During the weekend all our meals were hot, straight out of the catering containers, so nothing to really report there. However, during one morning in the range butts, I was given permission to cook up some hot chocolate with my mess tin & canteen stove. I hadn‘t tried this before, and it worked out great, although it never quite got boiling hot. Is this how the IMP‘s are cooked normally?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

portcullisguy,
Just to keep you on track and get you off on the right foot. The "lunch boxes" are referred to as Box Lunches and your catering containers are called Hay Boxes.

 

[SpinDoc]

There are 4 main ways that I can think of to serve an IMP meal

a) Eat it cold right from the package. *shudder*
b) Put it into a pressure cooker (along with like the rest of your section‘s meals) and heat it up with a Coleman stove. This requires someone who knows what s/he is doing -- could result in a) if it screws up -- Pro is that you can cook many meals relatively fast.
c) Use your canteen cup, get a canteen cup stove and burn a fuel tablet underneath it. Almost foolproof way of heating something, but it does take a bit... I haven‘t actually timed it and compared it to heating with Coleman stove but I think it might take a wee bit longer. Problem is you can only fit like 2 (maximum 3) food packets in one canteen cup. Pro is that you can heat yourself up by burning a tab under your butt when you‘re cold and wet and feeling miserable
d) If you‘re lucky (or if you‘re smart and willing to invest a couple of bucks and have your own stash in your ruck), your unit will supply water-activated heating pouches, which are GREAT. Guaranteed to work, and in 12 minutes exactly the pouch is piping hot. (Careful about burning yourself). Only fits one meal though, but it‘s really really great (I think). No flame, no fuel, just add water. And no bulky stove to carry around. Con is that you can‘t heat drinking water this way.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Make sure you don‘t drink the water, because................sorry, what was I talking about? :blotto:

 

[astrof]

Spindoc to add another point.

e) If you are lucky enough to be mounted in armoured veh just throw it in the CBU (Cooking and Boiling Unit) in the morning and when it comes for a break or lunch you have hot water and hot food!

 

[Fishbone Jones]

"and when it comes for a break or lunch you have hot water and hot food!"

OK, no joke this time. Pots, canteen cups, heater bags, whatever. DO NOT use the same water for drinking as you boiled your bags in. It‘s not sanitary, and trace elements can leach from the packaging. BTW, it‘s not called a CBU, it‘s called a boiling vessel.

 

[Paul Gagnon]

Oh come on, you guys who didn‘t like ham omlettes are babies. The best way to eat them was cold and then drink the juice.

Oh yeah, who remembers Corned Beef Hash (IMP) for breakfast?

 

[SpinDoc]

I‘m a young‘un... what was the corned beef hash like? Is it anything like the Hereford corned beef in a tin from Brazil?

I was thinking the other day that I wouldn‘t mind some Spam in my IMP... I could eat that stuff cold and still like it.

 

[astrof]

Recceguy: The new boiling vessel, called CBU on the box that I signed for, does allow you to do both. This one replaces the old one but alas you cant fry anything with it.

Provided that you cook the rations inside the little pot like insert that seperates ration packs from the water, it is ok to drink it. It also come with a valve that you would find on a coffee urn for hot drinking water.

This is for my bison, but I understand that the coyote‘s, and LAV-3s have the same vessel.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Well, better safe than sorry. I suppose if your a Jimmy and your vehicle does‘nt move around much, then maybe no problem. I more than familiar with the unit your speaking of, I taught one of the first courses. Personally, I wouldn‘t trust the cross contamination after a day of movement. The CBU you speak of may be nomenclatured as such, but the armoured has had the same thing in one form or another on most of our tracks for at least the last 50 years, and we still call it a boiling vessel

 

[combat_medic]

You also forgot:

f) Stick it on the top of a coleman lantern when in the CP for 8 hours straight *shudder*

and

g) get yourself a piece of super high-speed kit like

this from MEC, and be able to heat up an IMP in about 2 minutes. Great little piece of kit in cold weather, adn is small enough to store in a C9 pouch, and still have room left over. Man, I should be a salesperson for these people!

 

[Korus]

Yeah, my Section Commander on basic highly recomneded those..