My Writing Group Has Just Published All Mapped Out - A New Anthology

Hi everybody!  Two years ago I joined up with the Edmonton Writers' Group and have been attending the meetings regularly.  The group is a loose affiliation of writers who just get together every two weeks to critique one or two short stories or pieces of writing from a member(s).  It's all done in good fun and the group has been running for fourteen years.

The group had previously published some anthologies and late last year, people started wondering if they should do another anthology.  Well, it is a year later and I contributed a story to All Mapped Out, the fourth collection that has just been published.

All Mapped Out is a set of stories based on the theme of MAPS.  Many kinds of maps are involved that range from actual paper maps to abstract concepts of a path or even a journey.  There are fifteen stories in this collection with no two stories being alike.  Some are mysteries, others are emotional journeys, and there are fantasy and science fiction stories too.  They’re all pretty enjoyable reads too (a good thing as this volume went through a number of editing passes within the group).   The volume has been in the works for over a year and it is the fourth anthology published by the group, and it is the first one for me to be involved in. All Mapped Out is available online as an ebook or in print.  All profits from this anthology are donated to the Edmonton Public Library which also hosts our meet ups when we meet in person.

It is a whole bunch of work to get out a printed book and ebook, but the Edmonton Writers' Group is a good bunch of folks who apparently love a good challenge and writing of all kinds.  Membership isn’t all that exclusive as there are no fees and you just have to attend three meetings to be considered a member, but we have people who come regularly and people who only drop in a few times a year.  The group has a pretty diverse membership with dozens of members and meets every two weeks to do friendly reviews of one or two stories.  Even with the pandemic this year, we went online to hold our meetings by video (and didn’t miss a single meeting), and I think everyone is glad to have some social contact with their fellow writers.  Personally, I’ve found that everyone is pretty supportive of each others writing and the commentary is always interesting as it brings up things that I never thought about or missed.

I contributed the story “Green Day” to the anthology.  My story is set in a future Edmonton which has undergone immense change due to climate change.  It is a story about competitors running a foot race around the core of the city while racking up scores on an overlayed virtual map.  The prize is luxury food privileges in a future that provides for all, but things we take for granted are now expensive luxuries.

It was really interesting to see the diversity of stories in this anthology and it really shows the different personalities and interests of the people in the group.  If you pick up a copy of the book, I hope you have a good read.

A big thanks also goes out to our editor, Howard, and Robin for facilitating the online meetings.

Where To Get All Mapped Out
All Mapped Out at Amazon.ca - Canadian Kindle ebook
All Mapped Out at Amazon.ca - Canadian trade paperback
All Mapped Out at Amazon.com - USA Kindle ebook

Older Works by the Writing Group
Between the Shelves at Amazon.ca - Canadian Kindle ebook
Edmonton Unbound at Amazon.ca - Canadian Kindle ebook

The Edmonton Writers' Group Blog and Website
http://edmontonwritersgroup.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/view/edmontonwritersgroup

My Writing
Tokyo Intro - a storytelling guidebook to the city
My science fiction books and stories

Food Preservation with MREs and Combat Rations in General

I've always been fascinated by the science of preserving food so that it can be eaten at a later date.  In southern Chinese cuisine there are the black 1000 year old eggs from China, dried shrimp and scallops, salt fish, or tasty salted duck eggs, etc.  In Europe you have bacon, ham, sausages, etc.  The Native Americans had pemmican and smoked meats too.  While these old food preservation techniques are no longer needed, they are still used today to preserve food and to provide great variety for eating.  Who doesn't like bacon if they are allowed to eat it!  I can't believe they have bacon jerky now too!

Food preservation technology via canning took a big advance in the 18th century if I recall from watching the show Connections.  Napoleon was concerned about feeding his army and a man named Nicolas Appert figured out that he could preserve food in bottles if the food was cooked and sealed in an airtight container.  Canned rations followed later in the 19th century.  Military needs basically produced an innovation in food preservation.  On an interesting side note, this also means that making jam and other fruit preserves didn't exist until after these innovations, so the techniques are only a few centuries old.  Before canning, you had drying, smoking, salting, and pickling as methods of preserving meat and vegetables.

Skipping ahead a couple of hundred years, past WWII K-Rations, then C-Rations, you now have MREs or meals ready to eat.  So rations were bottled, then canned, and now they are stored in retort pouches made out of laminated foil and plastic.  MREs were a big improvement on previous types of military field rations that existed even in the 1970s.  These days, they would be compared against other types of dehydrated or retort packaged foods and they hold up pretty good against the competition.

It turns out there is a community of military ration enthusiasts and I watched bunch of unpackaging videos on Youtube.  You could spend hours viewing a variety of military rations from different countries and be impressed.

It was pretty interesting watching as you can see what different countries consider essential to their soldiers in the varieties of food and amenities packed. Some of the European rations like the ones from the French and Italians were pretty fantastic looking as it was almost like having a picnic, the Japanese ones were pretty darn cool for their food and contents, and the American MREs had to be the best designed.  I was really impressed with how you could eat the contents right from the pouches, mix your drinks in the pouches, only need to use a spoon, and generally eat without camp stoves and such with the flameless ration heaters.  Some of the other nations needed little stoves to boil water or to heat their canned meals.

Gundam Cup Noodle

Instant ramen is another advance in food preservation technology.  I blog about instant ramen on my Japanese Pop Culture blog, particularly cup noodles from Japan as they are far superior to the regular cup noodles you can get over here (it is more about quality in Japan than value).   It is interesting that the Japanese Self-Defence Forces actually issue cup noodles and the government over there keeps cup noodles stockpiled for emergency preparedness.

Cup Noodle cutaway

 Instant Ramen 

• Nissin Pop Culture (The Fame of Cup Noodles) 
• The Original Chicken Ramen - A Taste of History 
• Nissin Big Cup Noodle Extravaganza 
• Nissin Kitsune and Tempura Instant Ramen + King Chicken Cup Ramen
• Tasty Nissin Instant Ramen - Deluxe Versions
• Nissin Cup Noodle Shio Ramen and Big Cup Chicken Ramen with Summer Curry Tomato
• Nissin Cup Noodles for 7-11, Italian Curry, and Kalbi Garlic Flavours!
• Donbe Big Tempura Udon and Nissin Instant Chicken Ramen Bowl 
• My Travelogue Post To The Yokohama Nissin and Ramen Museums. DIY cup of noodle!
• Menraku Instant Bowl Ramen
• Brazilian Cup Noodle and the World Cup
• Nissin Deluxe Instant Ramen Bowls
• Nissin Craftsmen Instant Ramen Bowls
• Nissin Curry Meshi (Instant Rice Bowls)
• Japanese Emergency Rations 

• Interesting post about Japanese military rations here.

Back to the MREs now.  I finally bought a box of civilian MREs from Meal Kit Supply via Costco Canada (thanks Costco for carrying these at a reasonable price), and I'll try a bunch of these over the year just for the sake of trying them.  The box of 12 meals I received contained a variety of meals and they actually look pretty cool packed in their tough plastic bags. 

• Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Potatoes au gratin
• Chili with Beans, Fried rice
• Vegetarian Ratatouille, Potatoes au gratin
• Chicken with Noodles, Fried rice
• Beef Ravioli, Potato cheddar soup
• Chicken Fajita, Fried rice
• Meatballs in Marinara Sauce, Potato cheddar soup
• Vegetable Lasagna, Zapplesauce
• 2 Apple Maple Oatmeal, Brown sugar toaster pastry
• 2 Sausage Patty with Hash Browns, Hash brown with bacon

There is a great deal of stuff packed into each one of these, and they are heavy, but you'll get a ton of calories from them.  If you can carry the weight, they are definitely good for rations on the go, and the variety of items inside is a nice plus.

I've only tried one MRE so far, a Meatballs in Marinara Sauce and a Potato Cheddar Soup with Bacon meal.  It was actually pretty good overall and I'll comment about the meal in the pictures below.  A meal works out to cost less than $10 Canadian if you take out the shipping cost.  They last a long time too, up to five years with regular cool storage.

The MREs come in tough plastic packages within a sturdy cardboard box and are tightly fitted inside.  You'll need  a lot of muscle or a cutter to open the tough bags.

The large amount of contents in an MRE.  You get drink mixes, instant coffee, suger, salt/pepper, spoon, napkin, hot sauce, two main entrees, nice big package of crackers, peanut butter, and a flameless ration heater.  The two dull olive green packages in the top right are the main entrees in their retort pouches.

Flameless ration heater wrapped around my soup and meatballs.  It didn't heat as much as I thought it would, but I don't think I measured the water right and I'll have to try again with the next meal.  It was cold outside, so we'll see.

The meatballs in a tomato sauce.  The small meatballs were quite firm, but I enjoyed it.  It is probably better to have a firmer meatball than a squished on in my opinion.

Chedder and potato soup.  This was pretty good too and it went down real easy.

I was quite impressed by these crackers as they were crisp, had a good texture, and were fresh.  Went real good with the peanut butter.

When I write some more stories, some MREs need to factor in somehow to add good background for them!  Other than space gruel out of a tube, food synthesizers, or the little brick of miracle food (like Elven bread), science fiction MREs should be pretty darn interesting.  This is something that isn't really written about all that much, but maybe space marines will still be complaining about their field rations anyhow as it is a common thing to complain about.

As a parting shot, here is a picture of space instant noodles (ramen) that I shot when I was in Tokyo.  It was developed by Nissin for the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA).

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