Specification MIL-C-44072: Now that’s a tasty treat, soldier
We want to pass on a wonderful brownie recipe we’ve just discovered.
It comes from the Defense Logistics Center at the Defense Supply Agency in Philadelphia. It sets forth in 26 pages of Pentagonese what you need to do to whip up a bunch of chocolate-covered brownies or oatmeal cookies.
You’ll need a big whip. These treats are intended to be packaged in MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), which means they have to survive years on a shelf, high desert heat, desperate mountain cold and a possible drop from an aircraft. They have to be, shall we say, durable.
Specification MIL-C-44072 (the brownie recipe) is an Internet sensation, with some critics saying it demonstrates how nuts the Pentagon’s red tape requirements are.
On the other hand, if you’re going to pay for a few million brownies, you have to make sure you’re getting what you pay for, and that they’re edible once they get to some mountaintop in Afghanistan. Now multiply that times guns, bullets, health care, airplanes, etc., and you can see why the government will spend $760 billion on defense this year.
Speaking of nuts, you’ll need to check the “U.S. Standards for Shelled English Walnuts” from the Fruit and Vegetable Division of the Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA, and 90 percent of the pieces shall pass through a “4/16th diameter round hole screen.”
The recipe contains similar requirements for water, cocoa, dextrose, soda, eggs, salt, chemical leavening, flavoring, vitamins, pre-gelatinized starch, wheat gluten, emulsifiers, anti-oxidants and fat. The solid-fat indexes shall have a Wiley Melting Point of 117 to 119 degrees.
Anyway, you whip it all up in the proper proportions as contained on Pages 7 and 8 of the recipe, and “pour batter into pan at a rate that will yield uncoated brownies, which, when cut so as to meet the dimension requirements specified in section 3.4f (3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches by 5/8 inch), will weigh approximately 35 grams each and bake at 350 until done (30 to 45 minutes).
You don’t even want to know about the chocolate topping or the rodent-infestation rules.
Where you’re really going to have trouble is wrapping these suckers. About half of the 26-page recipe is devoted to packaging issues, including delamination of the outer ply of the pouch. Apparently, the brownies have to be easy to open, but not so easy as to allow the tasty treats inside to become contaminated.
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