Ready to eat vegetarian penne pasta and Red Hots courtesy of the Texas Army National Guard.
To eat the Red Hots or not to eat the Red Hots: that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
A snackless afternoon of outrageous misfortune
Or to take the red cinnamon flavored candies
And by opposing them? To go hungry …
Somehow I feel Shakespeare never had such a conflict insofar as Red Hots are concerned. But I may be mistaken for these Red Hots I found in an MRE may have come from Billy’s time.
Red Hots seem an odd snack to have in an MRE packet. Lovely soothing snack for Fallujah in the dead of summer, don’t you think?
Sucrose, corn syrup, corn starch, corn fectioner, corn de ment, something very, very red. Yep, those are Red Hots.
When I evacuated for Hurricane Rita — or should I say when I decided to get smacked around somewhere else from the storm –I got a case of Meals Ready to Eat. The National Guard was handing cases of MREs and bags of ice out on that hot September day at the old football field in my old hometown.
I think that, to date, I may have eaten one MRE meal from the case of MREs. I can’t remember what it was. I don’t think it was too good. My friend Sarah, who remarkably stayed in town during the storm and ate no MREs, came by my place for lunch one day after I got back from my brief evacuation. She wanted an MRE for lunch since she had not tried one. The vegetarian penne pasta was what she chose and she said it was pretty good.
Now I must say I have probably eaten all the snacks from that case — peanut butter, wheat toast, crackers, pound cake, M & Ms, everything but the Red Hots. So while in the kitchen this afternoon I thought: Why not?
So I have eaten about half the bag or about two servings, according to the “Nutrition Facts” on that bag. Carbohydrates and sugars seem to be the candy’s sole nutritional payoff. I suppose you could call carbohydrates and sugars nutrition although that is not how I normally think of the word. But after half the bag, I say “enough.” A little bit of Red Hots go a long way.
Something seemed so appealing about Red Hots when I was a kid. Maybe it was how it turned your tongue red. Or perhaps it was the little heat zing I like so much after I long since graduated to jalapeno or habanero peppers. Damned if I know. I probably will eat Red Hots again sometimes. Maybe in 100 years or when Hell freezes over — whichever comes first.