This information is for those who have only heard the phrase “C-Rations”. Those of you who know what they are tell us you favorite recipes for a gourmet meal. I will post them at the bottom.
“C” (combat) Rations has been the staple of the American Soldier from WWII through Vietnam. I guess you could call it the “Original Box Meal”.
This is just one sample. As you can see you have (1) the box your meal came in. Then the meal is broken down. In this case, cans 2 and 3 may comprise the fine cuisine and cans 4 and 5 may be the desert. Inside package 6 you would 7,8,9,10.12,13,14, 15 and 16. Number 14 was very important because it was your daily allowance of Toilet Paper. You also had salt, pepper, coffee and 2 chic lets to prevent you from having bad breath. I skipped #11 because the one thing they did not provide was toothpaste and tooth-brush. Oh Yeah, sometimes your got a chaw of tobacco.
The following were the choices of meals. Most of the time the boxes were turned upside down so you couldn’t see what you were getting. Most of the time you didn’t want to know. Here were your options”
Ham and Eggs Chopped
Beef Spiced with Sauce
Meat Balls with Beans in Tomato Sauce
Beef Slices & Potatoes
Turkey Loaf
Beefsteak
Pork Steak
Chicken Boned
Ham and Lima Beans
Beans w/Frankfurter Chunks in Tomato Sauce
Fried Ham
Chicken and Noodles
Spaghetti and meatballs
You also were treated with such things as: peanut butter and jelly, cheddar cheese, pound cake, crackers, fudge bars and John Wayne Candy Bars.
Hot cocoa and soda crackers.
John Wayne candy Bars and soda crackers. The John Wayne Candy bars were prize possessions as was the Toilet Paper and matches. Almost all C-Rations were terrible unless heated so heat tabs or pieces of C-4 were needed.
Luckily for most Service men I Nam we only had to eat C Ration once a day while in the field. Others had to endure more torture.
No one has ever died from eating the C-Rations that I know of. We just thought we were going to.
My favorite meal was ham and eggs with cheddar cheese.
I thought some were pretty good especially the:
Spaghetti and meatballs,
Beef and Rocks,
Beefsteak,
Meat Balls with Beans in Tomato Sauce and
Chopped Ham and Eggs.
Those were even better if you had some hot sauce, time and some heat tabs.
The ones I really hated were:
Turkey Loaf
Pork Steak
Chicken Boned
Ham and Lima Beans
Beans w/Frankfurter Chunks in Tomato Sauce
Chicken and Noodles
But they all had one strong point…I never found any that were rotten if the can looked OK…I cant say the same for MRE’s. I popped a bag Beef Stew open once and it smelled like a corpse.
I found a case of C’s from the Vietnam era a few years before I retired (1997) laying on a rock. There was almost no cardboard left just the cans stacked the way they were packed. Guess what after opening them we ate them and no one got sick. The pound cake was as delicious as ever.
C Rations housed in a Military Museum in Ettlebrook, Luxembourg
Charlie Troop 1st Squadron 9th Cavalry Regiment 
Xbow
April 28, 2011
I thought some were pretty good especially the:
Spaghetti and meatballs,
Beef and Rocks,
Beefsteak,
Meat Balls with Beans in Tomato Sauce and
Chopped Ham and Eggs.
Those were even better if you had some hot sauce, time and some heat tabs.
The ones I really hated were:
Turkey Loaf
Pork Steak
Chicken Boned
Ham and Lima Beans
Beans w/Frankfurter Chunks in Tomato Sauce
Chicken and Noodles
But they all had one strong point…I never found any that were rotten if the can looked OK…I cant say the same for MRE’s. I popped a bag Beef Stew open once and it smelled like a corpse.
I found a case of C’s from the Vietnam era a few years before I retired (1997) laying on a rock. There was almost no cardboard left just the cans stacked the way they were packed. Guess what after opening them we ate them and no one got sick. The pound cake was as delicious as ever.
patrickbieneman
April 29, 2011
Please give me your name so I can give you credit. I posted the comment to my blog.
Pat
Officer Cynical
May 8, 2011
I was doing some research on c-rats for my blog and came across this page. Wow – some painful memories there, man! Beefsteak with the slab of cold, hard grease on the top. Dried bug carcasses in the hot chocolate powder. Canned fruit so sickeningly sweet I couldn’t get it down. Where was McDonald’s when we needed them?
TC aka: Too-Cool
September 19, 2012
Although I served well after Nam, (’81-’84), we still were eating C-rations. We were later “treated” to the new MREs.
It wasn’t unusual to find the date on the can was nearly as old as I was. The “old” C-rats had their advantages over the MREs. They made heating up your food much easier. Just open the can and put it on someting hot. The lid was the handle and we quickly became proficient with the p38 can opener. I almost never had to “shine up” my mess kit for another inspection. The MREs required heating up some water and the pouring it into the bag without burning your hand with the now scalding cup or packaging. The pork patties were great if you were able to trade for the pineaplle jelly and dip the patty into the jam. The beans and spagetti came in larger cans and if you were really hungry, they filled the void quite well.
sharky
December 8, 2013
What’s the dimension of the box?
Phillip F
November 1, 2017
The boxes were something like 3x5x8. I the biggest downside to the C’s were the bruises you received when you hit the dirt with your rations stored in your field pants. My platoon Sgt and I became c ration gourmet chefs. We carried a wooden ammo crate full of discarded unopened rations. Pork Steak cooked up with pineapple preserves was like eating holiday ham. Lots of Tobasco, salt and pepper made the rations more than tolerable. One very cold February night when we were in the field the division commander allowed warming fires. Not very tactical but most welcome. We hit the sack and left two RTO’s up to handle the radio. The artillary battalions were lobbing 105 rounds over our heads into an impact zone to our front. About 2:00am there was what seemed like a huge explosion and I awoke to everything on fire; my sleeping bag, my uniform, my shelter and anything else that wasn’t flame retardant in about a 10 yard radius. I thought it was a short round at first but there was no crater and no injuries other than some minor burns. The radio watch could offer me no clue as to what had happened. The next morning I found what was left of an exploded peanut butter tin that one of my RTO’s had discarded into the fire.
Charlie Sommers
September 27, 2014
The only one that was almost inedible was the Ham and Lima Beans. If I remember correctly it was so salty it required about two canteens of water to wash it down. The beefsteak tasted pretty good but looked like Alpo. Canned fruit and crackers were always good and the cigarettes, even though the paper sometimes had wormholes in it, were always welcomed.
Karl N
September 26, 2015
I served at fort Hood in the early 80s, and had many c ration meals when we went to the field. Some were not too bad when you were really hungry, and I was always starved. The one I liked was the spaghetti. Some meals had an orange loaf cake in a can that was dense, heavy and SUPER dry. Also, they never put enough p38s in the c-rat cases, so the first thing everybody learned was to put one on their dog tags.
patrickbieneman
September 26, 2015
You must have had the more modern C Rats. Orange Cake loaf. Never heard of it. As bad as they were we survived eating them.
Karl N
September 26, 2015
It may have been called orange nut roll; I think they had several flavors, they were all dry.
Leonard (Gene) Young
December 3, 2015
I have fond memories of the c-rations. But I joined the army at 17 in 1977. The cigarettes were no longer there though. Everything else Was about right.the John Wayne bar was not the most coveted though. They were true to their nickname however. Because they were tough. I mean hard a a rock. My first meal was ham and eggs. And remained my favorite until the early ’80s when they were replaced by the mre. There was only one entre that I could never ever eat. That damned fruit cake. I would wait until I thought I was starving and give it a try. Nope, I’d rather starve. I’d throw it away after no more than 2 bites. I still carry a p38 on my keychain. Wish I had a cool recipe for you but can’t think of any.
Joseph Gray
January 5, 2016
In addition to the meal, the cans could be used for an “improvised early warning device,” by hanging them in the wire with a few rocks in them so they rattled if someone attempted a breach. Try that with an MRE wrapper!
stevecat
February 24, 2018
Nice web site.
I am a disabled Vietnam War veteran writing a memoir about my experiences in the war.
I need a picture of vietnam-era C-ration contents for this memoir. There are a few on your site.
If you could send my note to picture owners, maybe they would contact me so I could request their permission to use a picture.
thanks,
Steve
Pleiku and Qui Nhon, 69-70
patrickbieneman
February 24, 2018
Steve, you can use the photos from my site they are not protected.
Staff sgt Joe Nicolich ret.
January 4, 2019
Where can I find some c rar 1940 era got to have some John Wayne bars,how I miss them.
patrickbieneman
January 5, 2019
Go to ebay.com
Jim Talone
December 17, 2019
I am trying to write a memoir of my year in Vietnam and wanted to write about C-rations that were such a big part of our lives. At Khe Sanh all we ate were c-rations for 78 days. Out of boredom we used to read the dates on the boxes. Most were from the late 40’s and still good to eat. We didn’t love the C’s but they kept you alive and if you ate three meals a day you could get fat. When we ran low on heat tabs I remember tearing the cardboard box into little pieces and burning it in our little c-ration stove to heat our tea or coffee
Thanks for all your detail.
Curtis Gomez
April 1, 2024
I was fortunate… Or not, to have had the old and the new C rats. As a boy scout, the carrier Ranger sponsored our troop and gave us C rats for our camp outs. Of course the scout master confiscated the cigs.
I ended up in Korea in 78 with the newer C rats, personally Turkey Loaf was my fav, but I always took ramen and Chef Boyardee Beefaroni with me. We were in the field for a couple of weeks once and I sold a can of Beefaroni to a guy for $10.