FRUIT CAKE!! I know I'm dating myself, but I remember the tins of fruitcake in the old C-rats. On a cold, wet night it tasted pretty good with a half canteen cup of GI instant coffee/cocco.

"There is nothing so frightening as ignorance in action."

Using fruitcakes for survival food sounds all well and good, until you come to the realization that there are only three fruitcakes in actual existance. They were all made back in the 1800's. The same ones just keep getting passed around from family to family at Christmas time.

You are wrong! I ate all three of those a couple of years ago. The ones floating around now are decades newer...

Still got your P-38??? I do...

C-Rat pound cake with peaches! The canned nut cake was petty good too. Some of the older rats even had a small pack of cigarettes.

LONG LIVE THE FRUITCAKE!!!!!!!!!!!

I know there are many people Out There who hate fruitcake. My question: are you talking about the dry, crumbly bitter fruitcake that was made in Formosa from Old Aunt Ethel's decoy recipe that some hated relative gave them? I'm sure you're not referring to Old Aunt Ethel's REAL recipe that she only parted with on her deathbed years later. It was really yummy and soaked with old brandy. Well, Old Aunt Ethel was also usually soaked with old brandy, too, but that's another story.

A good fruitcake, along with chocolate, contains all the basic nutritious food groups: grain, sugar, fruit and alcohol, fat and chocolate.

Just think of it as the modern American's pemmican! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

p.s. The Mora (or other carbon steel) isn't necessary, no matter what CK says.

Sue

Ya just gotta stay away from the lima beans and, er ah, ham...

Chris why would anyone eat something that resembles a few steps below doorstop in the food chain?

My dad told me that his ship rescued a torpedoed sailor in WWII. The fellow said that he'd eaten his boots and belt, and a seagull he'd managed to grab. He finished up with: ``Thank God you found me ... another few weeks and I would have had to try to eat the survival rations.''

The sailors believed that the rations were made to taste awful, so bored sailors wouldn't munch them before the ship was torpedoed. Dad's story was probably not totally true, but it makes an important point about survival rations. You want them to be nasty enough that you won't eat them just because you are a little bit hungry. That way, you know they will be there in a real emergency.

Don't waste your time on a Claxton fruit cake. Go to a local bread bakery and buy from them. This is the right time of year for a real good bakery fruit cake.

My only use for a Claxton fruit cake now is as a wheel chock on my pickup truck.