Turkey, Diced, Menu 7

I was sitting down to a meal of Turkey, Diced, Menu 7 when I noticed the dog wasn’t eating.

“Eat!” I said, pointing at him.

He looked at me in that kind of way dogs do when they are telling you to go to hell without changing expression. It’s in the eyes.

“Eat your nice Turkey, Diced, and later I’ll let you have a delicious piece of Cake, Maple Nut, 6288-26C,” I said.

But Hoover, being the kind of animal he is, cast me one final look of derision, and slowly walked away. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t a good judge of food anyhow. Later I would give him some Cow, Dead, Ground.

What I’ve been testing for a couple of days is the kind of chow our people in the military get when they’re out in the field.

They’re called MREs for Meals, Ready-to-Eat.

When I was a dumb kid in the Marine Corps, we were issued C rations. Forty years later, I still can’t get their taste out of my mouth.

Some of the guys from the poorer states loved them. I guess when you’re raised on grits and pork bellies, corned beef hash is a delicacy.

The best of the rations was the spaghetti and meatballs, but they went to the officers. A gunnery sergeant told me if I weren’t so short and ignorant (he pronounced it “iggorant”), I might be an officer myself and get to eat spaghetti and meatballs.

The man was sired by a pit bull, so I never argued with him. I’m pleased to say, however, that while I’m still short, I ain’t iggorant anymore and I get all the damned spaghetti I want.

I can also get MREs. Those in my possession at the moment came from Gunnery Sgt. Bob Torres, who is public affairs chief for the Marine Recruiting Station in L.A.

He gave me the aforementioned Turkey, Diced, Menu 7, and a packet of King, A La Chicken, Menu 9.

Torres has been in the Corps 19 years, which spans both C rations and MREs. Before that came K rations and before that, cannibalism.

When I asked which he liked best, he said, “I’m the steel-bellied type. I’ll eat anything.”

It was a tactful reply. A good recruiter is not going to knock the chow. “The Marines are Looking for a Few Good Pigs” is no way to build a fighting force.

But don’t let old Steel Belly fool you. I happen to know he prefers scampi and angel hair pasta at Mirabelle on Sunset Boulevard to anything issued by the USMC.

The Marine Corps does not offer scampi in its MREs. And you can bet your plastic spoon you’re not going to get Turkey No. 7 at Mirabelle.

“There’s a gourmet cook book for MREs,” Torres said hopefully, realizing where the whole interview was headed. “You take the turkey, for instance, and combine it with noodles. Then you cover it with Tabasco sauce.”

The gunnery sergeant who thought I was iggorant had no sense of taste. One day I saw him chewing on a piece of bark.

“You want some, kid?” he said, holding out a piece. It was a human gesture. He was reaching out to his fellow man.

I took a small bite. We chewed and growled together. Later I spit it out.

The MRE food is created and tested at the Army Research and Development facility in Natick, Mass.

Art Reardon, a civilian, is the public affairs chief.

“It’s good stuff,” he said when I telephoned him.

Like a recruiting officer, he owes an obligation to sell his product. I didn’t expect him to say it was pig food.

But he did temper his enthusiasm by adding: “At least it’s a hell of a lot better than C rations and a thousand times better than K rations.” Reardon says there are 12 different menus and he’s tried them all, from pork with rice to tuna with noodles.

He adds that he’s four years past retirement age and he’s still full of vigor. The implication is that the vigor is a direct result of the MREs.

After the food is created, it’s tested by civilians first and then by military personnel.

“There are a lot of tests for each food before it’s adopted,” Reardon says proudly. “It’s even approved by the surgeon general!”

Hoover watched from a distance while I sampled the Turkey, Diced, No. 7, and then the King, A La Chicken, No. 9.

They will never be listed in Gourmet magazine, but, as a friend says, if you were a prisoner of the Iraqis and hadn’t eaten for several days, they’d be delicious.

Hoover agreed to eat the powdered pears. He wanted the fruitcake, but the fruitcake is mine. He’s too short and iggorant for fruitcake.

I love it. Beats the hell out of bark, that’s for sure.