Review of Mountain House Chili Mac

Mountain House - Chili Mac with Beef

I've said before that to expect the same quality out of a freeze dried meal as you're accustomed to at home
is to invite disaster. Mountain House tried to prove me wrong.

It's 8:30 in the evening. The campfire is crackling and the beer has been passed around. We're still in Joshua
tree under an expansive, star-filled sky and just about everything aches in the satisfying way it will after a
long day of outdoor adventure. A lone guitar in the distance sends notes floating across the desert as a
neighboring all-girl camp sings along with carefree abandon. It's a fantasy setting in which firelight casts
seductive shadows against the rocks lending surreal but entirely imagined beauty to their unseen figures.
Their voices are Irish, raucous and the lyrics bawdy. They are a mythical collection of Sirens in a vast sea of
sand broken by cresting waves of stone, enticing us, luring us into who knows what kind of mischief. But we
don't go. We all have girls back home and it's dinner time. The thought of a hot meal holds far more sway
than the desire to see if the fantasy matches reality.

John, camp chef extraordinaire, has firmly established himself as the most beloved and essential member of
our crew. He has an incredibly creative talent with food that has left us entirely spoiled. It's with substantial
disappointment that I wait for my water to boil, resigning myself to freeze dried grub for the betterment of
this site over the culinary miracle he's whipping together. I'm sure to be disappointed. I can't help but be with
the smells wafting over from his pot. I was about to be pleasantly surprised.

I'll include the statistics for those who care. Mountain House Chili Mac with Beef offers 280 calories per
serving (70 from fat). Other stats include 8 grams of fat, 25mg of cholesterol, 770mg of sodium, 39 grams of
carbs and 14 grams of protein per serving. I would be dining on the 2 serving, 20 ounce package and, judging
by the drooling horde surrounding John as he prepped his masterpiece, I'd be eating it all alone. The meal
requires 2 cups of boiling water to cook and hydrates in the pouch in about 8-9 minutes.

I'll dispense with a nutritional comparison this time but will give a frame of reference most US and Canadian
readers can relate to. Have you ever eaten Chef Boyardee Beefaroni? This is way better. Stouffer's Macaroni
& Beef with Tomatoes? This beats it. I've had restaurant and cafeteria chili mac that couldn't compare with
this stuff. It did need a dash of salt and it would have attained near perfection if I'd had some cheddar to
shred into it and a loaf of French bread to enjoy it with but, as is, out of the pouch, wow. The pouch
advertises it as "Spicy Chili Sauce with Beef, Macaroni, and Beans" so it would be a dereliction of duty were
we to ignore the heat index. Those with asbestos tongues won't even feel a tickle. Hope you packed your own
Habanero. Moderate spice lovers might just notice that there's an unsatisfying hint of heat. Those who like
just a little kick will be completely satisfied while those of you with tongues like dry kindling on a hot California
summer might find the heat-index a hair (barely) too strong for your liking.

It's a bold move to judge chili mac so positively. America is a Chili loving nation and I imagine serious feuds
have been fought over chili recipes. Families guard their culinary secrets with fierce tenacity and the
fanaticism only seems to escalate when chili is on the line. There are those for whom there is no substitute.
The chili that (insert family member) spends hours slaving over is always going to beat a mass produced
product. We know and we agree. Good luck hauling all those ingredients and the tools to prepare them out to
the wilderness, though. The 2 serving Mountain House Chili Mac with Beef pouch weighs in at a wimpy 4.8
ounces and measures comparable to a sheet of paper (plus a couple inches thick).

Allowing for the possibility that the setting, the fresh air and an intense appetite conspired to skew my
perception, I even prepared a batch of this at home and begged my notoriously finicky wife to just sample a
bite for the sake of an accurate review. Believing nothing good could come of a foil pouch, she grudgingly
took a bite and looked surprised. She'd had better, she stated, refusing to concede entirely, but this was
actually pretty good. At least as good as anything she'd bought in a can or the frozen section of our local
grocery store. We both settled on 4 out of 5 for this product. As usual, this rating comes with the disclaimer
that our rating measures this meal's merit as a campground food rather than weighing it against something
you might buy in a restaurant or concoct from your own ingredients.

I still suffered a touch of envy as my climbing buddies devoured John's creation. Gone, however, was the
bitter resentment I thought I'd be wallowing in for the remainder of the night. I ate the entire 2 serving
pouch which stuffed me to the seams and matched them belch for belch the rest of the night. The guitar
music and singing faded away as the wind picked up and the fire died down. Conversation lapsed and a
mellow contented quiet settled over the entire camp. It was a nice end to a perfect day outdoors. I would,
through a chance encounter on my way to the facilities in the pre-dawn hours the next day, discover that
the reality in at least one instance didn't quite match the fantasy version of the neighboring camp we'd
concocted. The girl I nearly collided with coming around a boulder, while certainly cute, wasn't the mythical
goddess we'd envisioned. But when she boldly winked in the moonlight and warned me about the 'touch
potent' olfactory assault I was about to experience in the camp's chemical toilet, I found myself charmed
regardless. "I'll contribute accordingly," I replied sincerely, and grinned in the darkness as her laughter trailed
her retreating silhouette back to her camp.