"Alright, so let's get this onto a tray. Nice.
— Steve, every video.
Steve1989MREInfo, channel name and alias of Steven Thomas, provides food critiques of a somewhat unusual sort: buying military MREs, or Meals Ready (to) Eat, then critiquing them much like a professional food critic. He's garnered a reputation for eating particularly antiquated rations that have been stored under various conditions. Some still shockingly edible, others not so much.
The channel can be found here.
Alright, so let's get these tropes onto a tray:
- Bad to the Last Drop: Occasionally the drinks included are just nasty, or other times just taste like water. The South African ration included a coffee that tasted like that. Steve otherwise expresses a consistent dislike of any drinks that have overpowering flavor and seems able to immediately identify artificial sweeteners in energy drinks.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Decades old out of date military rations would not be the meal of choice for many people, but Steve relishes them, not only for their historical value but genuinely enjoys eating them.
- Catchphrase: Several.
- "Alright, so let's get this onto a tray." - after laying out the ration to be eaten before jump-cutting to said items then being placed on a tray, "Nice." Sometimes, he changes it up so that the post-jump cut nice transitions well.
- "Nice hiss." - When opening vacuum-sealed bags or cans that give off a little hiss. This is also a sign that the contents are (possibly) safe to consume because they have not been exposed to the elements.
- "No hiss." - When an item that is supposed to be vacuum-sealed has been compromised and does not produce the expected hiss.
- "For breakfast, we'll be startin' the day off right with [describe food here]..." - Often said when presenting the breakfast portion of a 24-hour ration.
- Collector of the Strange: Steve collects (and eats) vintage military rations, as well as other military memorabilia and minutia like survival kits. When he's gotten ahold of a particularly historically significant or well preserved example of an MRE, he will often take care not to destroy the packaging when opening it so he can reseal it for display.
- Extreme Omnivore:
- Steve has regularly commented when something looks like it might be spoiled, and then confirms by eating it, and then kept eating it to completion. Only a handful of times has he had ill effects from eating food with a shelf life years out of date.
- Subverted in one incident from before he started making videos: Steve tried a less-than-one-year-old Ukrainian ration, but didn't learn until it was too late that it was from a bad batch, apparently so badly-prepared that it gave him E. coli.
- Flare Gun: A 1967 Vietnam era Pilot Survival Kit he reviewed included a flare launcher for showing search and rescue teams where the user would be. He then tried it out outside as a curiosity to see if it still worked. It did.
- Food Porn: Every now and then yours truly scores a ration that's simply decadent and delicious. All the more impressive when it's been stored for over a decade and hasn't spoiled even slightly. The overall presentation is often likened to an ASMR Video.
- Indestructible Edible: He once tasted some chocolate from an emergency parachute ration from WWII, and it turned out surprisingly delicious. He also discusses in some reviews of older MREs from the 1980s and early 90s that those often hold up and taste better than newer MREs that are still within their recommended three-year lifespan. The secret to the older MREs' longevity, he says, is trans fats.
- Must Have Coffee: It's often the first thing he looks for in a ration, and if a ration doesn't include it (or if it's gone bad) he'll sometimes provide his own. This was especially on display in his 1955 FPA Food Packet Individual C Ration video.
- Nice Guy: Unlike other venomous critics, Steve presents a cheerful-as-a-chipmunk persona and appreciates a good meal just like anyone else.
- Omniglot: While Steve obviously uses translators to understand the packaging of rations in foreign languages, he reads them aloud on camera as though he's translating it in real time, giving him the appearance of this. It's lead to a Running Gag in the comments that Steve can understand every language known to man, but only if it relates to rations.
- Running Gag:
- Describing something as utterly terrible, then taking another bite of it.
- 'Spoon music' after stirring powdered drink mix.
- Shout-Out: A framed picture of Kyle Reese is prominently visible on the wall behind Steve whenever he cuts away from the tray to a shot of himself. He also has a copy of Grays Sports Almanac on the top of his bookshelf.
- Tastes Like Feet: When describing meals of questionable quality, Steve will often use... odd comparisons. For example, he's compared the taste of a hardtack from the American Civil War to that of old library books and mothballs and the taste of a powdered beef soup from before World War One to that of raw sewage.
- They Don't Make Them Like They Used To:
- Steve expresses this regarding some of the older menu items such as vintage coffees, particularly US Coffee, Instant, Type 1. Regarding crackers, he says:Steve: The old crackers, they always held together. I mean look at that. They were just better back then.
- The entire video about the 1992 Meal, Ready to Eat, Individual Menu #8 Ham Slice is particularly nostalgia-laced.
- Steve expresses this regarding some of the older menu items such as vintage coffees, particularly US Coffee, Instant, Type 1. Regarding crackers, he says:
- This Page Will Self-Destruct: The instructions and contents sheet of the 1990 Yugoslavian JPA Pilot Survival ration Steve took a look at concludes by telling you to "burn or bury these instructions." Apparently the knowledge that a basic survival kit contained some salt tablets, a bit of candy, chocolate,and a packet of coffee was Serious Business during The Yugoslav Wars.
- Video Review Show: Reviews military rations, often historic and expired, and eats them on YouTube while commenting on them and (sometimes) giving their histories.
