The scariest things in the grocery store.

November 22, 2016 11:46 AM

This guy tastes the things you will still be able to find in the store three years after the start of the zombie apocalypse. A whole chicken in a can. Breakfast in a can. Potted meat, (the worst sounding list of ingredients.) And canned ground beef.
posted by Bee'sWing (121 comments total)

What about brains?
posted by ODiV at 11:53 AM on November 22, 2016

Reminds me of Steve, Don't Eat It!
posted by phunniemee at 11:55 AM on November 22, 2016 [16 favorites]

I bought one of these from a grocery store in Georgia, several years ago to be funny.

FWIW, I'm vegetarian now.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:55 AM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I love Underwood Deviled Ham.

Once when I was a child, I opened a can of deviled ham and spread it on saltines, and when I was done eating my snack, I noticed it was not deviled ham but potted meat (specifically, a novelty "Potted Possum" product personalized to my grandparents' general store). Eh, I didn't notice much of a difference.

I still buy deviled ham instead of potted meat, but I ain't gonna judge.

By the way, deviled ham supposedly has chili peppers and other "spicy" ingredients in it. I am here to tell you that deviled ham is in no way spicy. It might be Midwest spicy, I don't know. Ginger snaps are spicier than deviled ham.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:56 AM on November 22, 2016 [24 favorites]

Also, brains, pork and human, tend to be very high in cholesterol. A serving of pork brains in milk gravy has something like ten times the US RDA of cholesterol.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:58 AM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

We used to eat potted meat ALL the time when I was a kid. I thought it was just fine. I don't want to be disabused of my illusions.
posted by AFABulous at 12:01 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Potted meat

where are the pratchett jellied eels
posted by poffin boffin at 12:02 PM on November 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

the people in my office were talking about this topic just before it was posted and now i feel doxxed somehow
posted by beerperson at 12:02 PM on November 22, 2016 [14 favorites]

I love potted meat. It's one of my guilty 'poor people's' food that I'm fond of including Vienna sausages and canned tamales. All made by Hormel I think.
posted by shoesietart at 12:04 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wish I could be more comforted by the thought that zombies are clogging their arteries with cholesterol, but of course the whole point of them is that their circulatory system isn't doing much circulating to begin with.

(I grew up in Hawaii, hence I grew up with SPAM, so canned meat byproducts don't really disturb me that much. Definitely not sure I'd want to survive on it for too long, though.)
posted by tobascodagama at 12:07 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Potted meat
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:08 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

>also, brains, pork and human, tend to be very high in cholesterol.

Here's my public health minute on that -- dietary cholesterol intake turns out to be nothing to worry about! The body makes cholesterol out of saturated and trans fats, which you really, seriously do have to limit your intake of. But pork brains apparently are quite low in saturated fat. I dunno about humans. But do zombies worry about their fat intake?

See this from Cleveland Clinic
and this from the American Heart Association.
posted by PandaMomentum at 12:11 PM on November 22, 2016 [13 favorites]

Rillettes are just another variation of potted meat, and rillettes are *delicious*. Like all things, meat in a can can be fabulous or disgusting.
posted by tavella at 12:12 PM on November 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I used to keep a tin of Potted Meat Food Product™ on the dash of my Z28 in high school as a theft deterrent.

WTF is partially-defatted cook pork fatty tissue anyway and why does that just roll off my memory like it hasn't been 20 years?
posted by carsonb at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2016

(I didn't realize that the car itself was a theft deterrent (and a girl deterrent, and a scorpion attractant) until further down the road)
posted by carsonb at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2016 [18 favorites]

I love potted meat. It's one of my guilty 'poor people's' food

wait, were we poor?! it's not just a common southern thing?
posted by AFABulous at 12:18 PM on November 22, 2016

The breakfast in a can looks surprisingly edible, actually. I mean, the sodium content is absurd, but I'd be totally cool with eating that stuff in a pinch, hypertension be damned.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:19 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jesus, $17 USD for a 'whole' prechewed chicken in a can, who the hell is the target market for that?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:22 PM on November 22, 2016

FWIW, I'm vegetarian now.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:55 AM on November 22 [+] [!]

Yup. Name checks out.

As a child, my go-to DIY after-school snack was always a Deviled Ham sandwich, on Wonder bread, slathered with fucking Miracle Whip salad dressing.

As an adult, I don't consider any of these things actual food.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:25 PM on November 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

I confess to liking Spam, especially grilled, and even more as musubi. Also I may have some bologna in my fridge for fried bologna sandwiches.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

>I mean, the sodium content is absurd, but I'd be totally cool with eating that stuff in a pinch, hypertension be damned.

OK, looks like I have two public health minutes today. Unless you have elevated blood pressure (pre-hypertensive or with diagnosed hypertension) or have a family history of it, your sodium intake is also nothing to worry about! While rat models indicated a dose-response risk of salt to HTN, this is not true in general human populations. It is quite counterintuitive given how sodium causes animal cells to swell in a petri dish, but it turns out that large complex animal systems like ours are designed to get rid of excess dietary sodium efficiently (within some limits of course. Don't drink sea water). (Chickens get high cholesterol levels from dietary cholesterol intake, but that has to do with how bird metabolism work, and the animal model is not directly transferable to humans).

Here's a nice summary of the recent literature from Scientific American.

tl;dr: it's not the salt on the potato chips that's killing us, it's the trans fats and calorie overload. You still shouldn't eat potato chips or french fries, sorry.
posted by PandaMomentum at 12:29 PM on November 22, 2016 [26 favorites]

Jellied eels. (in a peel-top jar though)
posted by bonehead at 12:30 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Years ago, at my first job in Silicon Valley, one of the other support engineers maintained a "Food of The Damned" database. Potted meat was over-represented, as were a number canned, savory aspics. (Shudders at memory of canned aspic.) Somehow had managed to forget about it until now, so, uh, thanks, OP.
posted by mosk at 12:31 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

OK, looks like I have two public health minutes today. Unless you have elevated blood pressure (pre-hypertensive or with diagnosed hypertension) or have a family history of it, your sodium intake is also nothing to worry about!

nice try but I saw yesterday's FPP, sodium will explode my toilet
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:36 PM on November 22, 2016 [42 favorites]

I confess to liking Spam, especially grilled, and even more as musubi. Also I may have some bologna in my fridge for fried bologna sandwiches.

...MOM?!
posted by beerperson at 12:36 PM on November 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Rillettes are just another variation of potted meat

Yeah, I was going to come in to say the same thing. My opinions on stuff like Spam have changed completely since I started making my own rillette and other charcuterie.

To be fair to the potted meat, the ingredients list on that can is a lot less scary than some other "manufactured" foods:

-Mechanically separated chicken (sure, pink slime, whatever, but it's real meat and not ground up bones and cartilage - it's an effective use of the rest of the carcass after they take the breasts and legs off to charge $6/lb for them)
-Partially defatted cooked pork fatty tissue (sounds scary, but most likely either fatback or leaf fat, totally normal pork ingredients)
-Water (BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE)
-Salt
-Mustard
-Vinegar
-Dextrose (a simple sugar frequently used in sausage making)
-Sodium Erythorbate (apparently an agent used to speed up curing times)
-Garlic Powder
-Natural Flavors
-Sodium Nitrite (aka "pink salt", nitrites are commonly used in meat curing as a preservative; it might be bad for you in large quantities so don't eat potted meat every day of the week?)

So this loses the "seven ingredient" challenge by one, but arguably is a much simpler product than a package of Twinkies and there's only one ingredient on that list that I don't currently have in my kitchen. I think the biggest difference between this stuff and the rillette I made last night is that I bought my meat from a local butcher and who knows the quality or provenance of the stuff Armour bought.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:39 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh man I've been waiting weeks for this.

This looks like a lot of... Fantastic Meats And Where To Brine Them.
posted by GuyZero at 12:42 PM on November 22, 2016 [43 favorites]

Unless you have elevated blood pressure (pre-hypertensive or with diagnosed hypertension)

Which I do. :P But, yes, I'm aware of the research showing that sodium intake per se might not be a huge deal for most people without hypertension.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:43 PM on November 22, 2016

Cracked: 1, 2, 3.
posted by Melismata at 12:43 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

"What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat?
Incomplete
With it an abode of bliss."
posted by Death and Gravity at 12:47 PM on November 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

tl;dr: it's not the salt on the potato chips that's killing us, it's the trans fats and calorie overload. You still shouldn't eat potato chips or french fries, sorry.

So out of curiosity - my Chipotle salad bowl with lettuce, chicken, onions+peppers, corn, tomato salsa, black beans and sour cream according to the nutrition calculator on the site has about 650 calories (rounding up from 585 for safety sake). No rice and no cheese.

Given that it has 0 trans fats, a not-insane amount of calories, a TON of fiber (21 grams), a TON of protein, 100%+ of both vitamin A and vitamin C - is this all somehow considered a nutritionally complete and healthy meal despite containing a truckload of sodium?
posted by windbox at 12:49 PM on November 22, 2016

To be fair to the potted meat, the ingredients list on that can is a lot less scary than some other "manufactured" foods


Yeah, but meat burps, tho
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:50 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

beerperson, I'm definitely not your mom, nor in your office.

Plumtree's Potted Meat L Boom always has the best food.

I've never had a jellied eel, but now I want some. I have vivid memories of eels squirming around in basins and being eaten raw by people in a market in Amsterdam when I was a kid.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2016

I have vivid memories of eels squirming around in basins and being eaten raw by people in a market in Amsterdam when I was a kid.


That doesn't seem right, eel blood is toxic unless cooked.
posted by Ferreous at 12:58 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

You still shouldn't eat potato chips or french fries, sorry.

You just shut your dirty, dirty mouth. Right now.
posted by cooker girl at 1:07 PM on November 22, 2016 [20 favorites]

Good to see that Henry has finally found his niche in the cooking show world.
posted by es_de_bah at 1:08 PM on November 22, 2016

I seem to recall hearing something in my youth about "The Jungle". I believe they had fun and games.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:41 PM on November 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

Anybody ever had livermush? It's a deep-south brick of meat made of pork liver, spices, cornmeal and "parts." Slice it, fry it, bake it, delicious stuff. My great uncle (RIP) was a butcher and made the world's best. I asked him what was in it once, and he said "Sugar, if I tell you, you'll never want to eat it again!" Ignorance really is bliss sometimes.
posted by jhope71 at 1:46 PM on November 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Maybe he can get cretons in a can.
posted by GuyZero at 1:50 PM on November 22, 2016

I really appreciated how this guy approached Whole Chicken in a Can with such wide-eyed optimism only to descend, over the course of four minutes, into questioning the motives of the people who put chickens in cans, and perhaps his own place in the universe. Pleasingly soul-crushing. A+.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:53 PM on November 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

Pleasingly soul-crushing. A+.
posted by Kafkaesque at 3:53 PM on November 22

You already know what I'm going to say.
posted by phunniemee at 1:56 PM on November 22, 2016 [16 favorites]

Having that breakfast in a can product was kind of a status symbol when I was a student 25 years ago.
posted by Coda Tronca at 1:58 PM on November 22, 2016

From a can?

Yuck, we made our very own "head cheese" thank-you-very-much...

Heh ... Naw, it was pretty much yucks all the way down...
posted by jkaczor at 2:05 PM on November 22, 2016

Brains. Back in the day, I was in Tokyo at a Japanese French restuarant. The menu was in French and Japanese. I knew enough French to tell the guy I was with that what he was pointing at was lamb. He got that. I ordered something that I knew to be veal. A plate with a roundish thing that had a crust and was fried surrounded by asparagus arrived. I cut off a slice thinking it was a veal roulade or something. Very mild taste and the texture of tofu. Then I realized it was calf's brain. I ate it. Like I said, very mild taste and the texture of tofu. Last time I ever had brains.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:05 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

between this and yesterday's cheese gun i am rethinking thanksgiving
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:11 PM on November 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

What about brains?

If he had any he wouldn't eat this crap.
posted by Splunge at 2:24 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don't know why, but I seem to be endlessly fascinated by this kind of YouTube self-experimentation. After watching the videos it's clear that TheWolfePit is a noble example of the breed, suffering numerous wounds to his digestive system for our education and amusement. I salute him.

And what an odyssey it was! From the igneous depths of chicken in a can to the soaring heights of canned ground beef. From Hades to Heaven, right there in the grocery store next to the canned tuna. How can this be anything but the best of all possible worlds?
posted by Kevin Street at 2:25 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

This came up for me in the related links on youtube and provides more footage of the whole chicken in can. Still, it does not go well. No cooking attempt is made, but eating does ensue with a texture/taste commentary.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 2:33 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

This far and no mention of Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap. They should do a crossover show, I bet they'd have a wild old time.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 2:44 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Anybody ever had livermush? It's a deep-south brick of meat made of pork liver, spices, cornmeal and "parts." Slice it, fry it, bake it, delicious stuff.

Sounds a lot like what we up north call scrapple. It's no mistake that the word has 'crap' in the middle.

A local purveyor of alleged edibles was selling vegan scrapple for a while. That opened the fourth seal of the apocalypse.
posted by delfin at 2:47 PM on November 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Watching mandolin conspiracy's link really shines a light on how good TheWolfePit's videos are (if you're into this sort of thing). mykyl makes himself the star of the video instead of centering everything on the food, and he doesn't even bother to cook the chicken first, thus maximizing it's grossness. I like that TheWolfePit is making an effort to educate us when he tells us why the chicken is so gross (it's slow cooked then canned and chilled, which makes it soft as baby drool), and he seems to be a genuine fan of potted meats who wants to give everything an even chance before trying it.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:50 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

The most offensive thing in this entire post is the state of the non-stick skillet in the Breakfast in a Can video. I mean, seriously. You're recording a semi-professional video and that's the equipment you want to show us? And the next thing I see is you poking around in there with a metal spoon?

I dunno, maybe it feeds into the whole, "I'm doing weird shit because I don't respect my body" but it doesn't seem performance-y enough.
posted by komara at 2:50 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I confess to liking Spam, especially grilled, and even more as musubi. Also I may have some bologna in my fridge for fried bologna sandwiches.

As I said a couple months ago... Spam musubi is A Thing because Spam is motherfucking delicious.

As is bologna.

AND MAYBE EVEN CANNED CORNED BEEF.

Maybe...
posted by elsietheeel at 2:51 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Know what else is delicious? Olive loaf. Bologna with olives in it. Yeah, that's right. Yum.
posted by Splunge at 3:05 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Vienna sausages

I've been known to buy baby food chicken or turkey "sausages." Much less salty but scratches that same itch.

my Chipotle salad bowl with lettuce, chicken, onions+peppers, corn, tomato salsa, black beans and sour cream according to the nutrition calculator on the site has about 650 calories (rounding up from 585 for safety sake).

Probably! Also:

Three L.A. Men Are Suing Chipotle Because They Felt Too Full After Finishing Their Burritos
posted by Room 641-A at 3:06 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Scrapple (and haggis) is delicious. Boudin is in the same ballpark. I had a friend who returned from a trip to Scotland with a can of haggis. Didn't get a chance to try it though. One of the best meals I ever had was a haggis from a fancy butcher in Aberdeen (a real one, in a sheep's stomach) and tatties and neaps drenched in butter.

Corned beef looks pretty off putting as it slithers from the can. The hash you make from it is fine though.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:08 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh man, the Dinty Moore video brought me back to my college days, before I'd taught myself to cook. I could actually taste it as I was watching the video.
posted by codacorolla at 3:20 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Three L.A. Men Are Suing Chipotle Because They Felt Too Full After Finishing Their Burritos

this is why we lost the election people
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:24 PM on November 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

We've made both haggis and blood pudding Scotish style (if you've had the Stornaway type, that's what we do). Fairly easy to do either at home really---both are only a little harder than making meatloaf---and really delicious.

Raw blood is easy to get at most Chinese groceries. A national chain, T&T, carries it in Canada. Otherwise, many butchers can get it too.
posted by bonehead at 3:29 PM on November 22, 2016

Recent Ask on various piggery preserving options.
posted by bonehead at 3:32 PM on November 22, 2016

Know what else is delicious? Olive loaf. Bologna with olives in it. Yeah, that's right. Yum.

Also good: macaroni and cheese loaf.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:36 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love potted meat. It's one of my guilty 'poor people's' food that I'm fond of including Vienna sausages and canned tamales. All made by Hormel I think.

When I was growing up, Vienna sausages were special occasion food rather than daily eating food. You had to be on the road for hours or camping in the woods to justify getting them. Unlike, say, the many subtle variations among Chef Boyardee pasta in a can, which were everyday fare. I still feel a powerful urge to buy Vienna sausages whenever I pass them, despite the fact that I never really liked them much even as a kid. Now I've learned to pass them by and go straight for the canned corned beef hash, which shortens my life and expands my waistline, but does a far better job of capturing lost magic. (And don't even get me started on cream chipped beef, ramen with peas and a bit of lunch meat in, or Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup eaten cold directly from the can; the tastes of childhood.)

I love exploring the strangest foods one can find. I'm certainly guilty of buying and trying things just because they seem weird, and openly laughing about them with friends and family. But. . . there's something a bit mean about the way the videos are framed. The difference between "surprising" and "scary" is subtle, but important.

Also, canned chicken isn't something that existed in my childhood, but at the moment my freezer is filled with an annoying number of bottles of chicken leftovers in stock. My bottles of slimy meat were laboriously assembled from organic free range chickens delivered by a local farmer; but except for the yuppie pedigree and the fact that they don't have as many tasty chunks of meat in them and won't last as long, they're indistinguishable from the canned chicken in the video. Baking a canned chicken is, I suspect, missing the point entirely. It's meant for soup, or chicken a la king, or dirty rice, or something else that people who actually buy it would be able to tell you about and which might taste fantastic.
posted by eotvos at 3:37 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

We drove through all of Illinois and half of Tennessee at night for a funeral and mom warned me breakfast wouldn't be good. Scrambled eggs, an extra .25 for having them done in butter and I'm 7 and Brains! are an option. So I had to have that, because Brains! My sister was nauseated enough that she just ate toast.

Mom always let me make my own mistakes. It was really sweet and salty. I threw up in the parking lot at the funeral home and I think my mom was glad that we had an out.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:49 PM on November 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I was hoping this would be a Beer Frame post.
posted by pxe2000 at 4:13 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

A couple other, funnier reviews of the same food from Stuart Ashens

• All Day Breakfast
• Whole Chicken in a Can

posted by SansPoint at 4:21 PM on November 22, 2016

I ate so much potted meat as a kid that I assume if you stab me in any muscle it will leak out in a sort of pink, viscous ooze.

Christmas Eve at our house was cocktails and nibbles around the Christmas tree. Whatever other hors d'oeuvres we had, there were always glazed cocktail wieners, cream cheese finger sandwiches on cocktail rye, and potted meat mixed with egg salad on Ritz crackers.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:30 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Enough hot sauce and or melted cheese will make any of this shit palatable.
posted by jonmc at 4:31 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, Grandma used to can her own chickens.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:33 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

...Meat tamales in a jar, floating in red grease, each tamale cloaked in a sheath of waxed paper. That's a fine childhood memory.
posted by acrasis at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

My grandma always used to have cans of lambs tongue in her pantry when I was a kid. I made her open one and was horrified by the sight of lamb taste buds staring up at me and refused to eat it. Wow, was she angry.
posted by h00py at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Amazon says that customers that bought whole chicken in can also bought creamed possum (with coon gravy!) in a can, and bread in a can, so I think we can deduce the primary market is youtubers and bloggers, with a sideline in oddly optimistic preppers.
posted by rodlymight at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Baking a canned chicken is, I suspect, missing the point entirely.

Well, it does say on the very can itself that one is meant to bake it--and actually baste it. And this is 17.50$/can?! I can get a fresh chicken for less than that.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:42 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Two or three, even.
posted by rodlymight at 4:44 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, it does say on the very can itself that one is meant to bake it--and actually baste it. And this is 17.50$/can?! I can get a fresh chicken for less than that.

I think the product is intended for when fresh chickens no longer exist.
posted by kafziel at 4:50 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, it does say on the very can itself that one is meant to bake it--and actually baste it.

Yeah, the baking I don't get. It does look like it'd be really good for soup, if you could separate the bones out afterward. But not, like, $17.50 good.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:55 PM on November 22, 2016

Peeling a beef tongue is fun. For me.

I have a can of possum. Assumed it was a joke.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 4:58 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sorry to say but the creamed possum in the can is just expensive inedible organic compost in a can. Yeah. I looked it up. Sometimes disbelief leads to disappointment.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:02 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Now you are scaring me. It's not creamed.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:32 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I once went to a Jamaican house party in Brooklyn. I was working at La Potagerie in NYC at the time. It was a soup restaurant the was opened by Jacques Pepin in 1970. Anyway, I became friendly with a cook there who introduced me to her niece. The niece and I went out a couple of times and kind of hit it off. The party was fun. I ended up staying until it was over.

The family then sat down to eat. I was given a pickled pig's foot. Not wanting to insult anyone I tried to... eat it? It was disgusting, viscerally so. Every eye was on me. I was sweating. Finally they took pity on me and brought me a plate of delicious food. Everyone laughed their head off. Silly white boy, we knew how you'd react. I was completely embarrassed.
posted by Splunge at 5:46 PM on November 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Anyone here actually try cooking any of the White Trash Cooking recipes?
posted by christopherious at 5:48 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

My dad would buy great big jars of pickled pigs feet. I continued to try to understand him.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:54 PM on November 22, 2016

Anyone here actually try cooking any of the White Trash Cooking recipes?
My lord, is that still in print? The mayonnaise slathered sandwiches in the potted meat video reminded me of that book. I remember the recipe for tomato sandwich: two slices white bread, fresh tomato, 1 cup mayonnaise; eat over sink.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:57 PM on November 22, 2016

My dad and I used to eat pickled herring on Triscuits.

And now I want pickled herring on Tricuits.
posted by cooker girl at 5:58 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

The family then sat down to eat. I was given a pickled pig's foot. Not wanting to insult anyone I tried to... eat it? It was disgusting, viscerally so. Every eye was on me. I was sweating. Finally they took pity on me and brought me a plate of delicious food. Everyone laughed their head off. Silly white boy, we knew how you'd react. I was completely embarrassed.

My white (Italian born immigrant) grandfather loved pigfeet. I've had them. They're not so bad.
posted by jonmc at 6:14 PM on November 22, 2016

My dad and I used to eat pickled herring on Triscuits.

Me too. What I really crave are those briny onions.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:17 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I also have a can of this in my pantry. Not sure how it got there. I shouldn't shop when I drink.
posted by jonmc at 6:20 PM on November 22, 2016

Also, Grandma used to can her own chickens.

Ladies and gentlemen, please put down your pens and pencils -- we have found Tuesday's winner.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:44 PM on November 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pickled herring is delicious, they have so many varieties at IKEA that I have a hard time picking one.

I grew up eating sardines with my dad and I sometimes crave them when walking by them in the aisle. Might have to pick some up this evening. He told me once that while at work he had sardines but no crackers, so he ended up eating them on top of a danish. I do not recall the kind, but "sardines on a danish" is one of those phrases that takes me back instantly.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 6:49 PM on November 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

If you try the canned ortolan, it's best if you eat it with a rest stop 7-11 paper towel over your head.
posted by moonmilk at 7:24 PM on November 22, 2016 [22 favorites]

I loooove pickled herring. I eat them on Triscuits as well.
posted by gucci mane at 7:29 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kafkaesque: "questioning the motives of the people who put chickens in cans"

This is easy. People with 50 chickens eating their heads off and no freezer space. We used to can chickens all the time (sans bones) on our hobby farm and we still can turkey because you can buy turkeys super cheap around Christmas and then have turkey in soups, casseroles, tacos/burritos and turkey salad sandwiches all year.
posted by Mitheral at 7:31 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Spam is a gateway scary food only if you didn't grow up with it as a pantry-grab of last resort. Like if your mom was a nurse who worked odd shifts and needed shelf-stable protein around to keep a teenage boy happy.

"Spam specials" = half an English muffin, buttered, topped with a thin slice or two of spam, a slice of tomato, and a slice of mozzarella (or similar). Run under broiler until edges of spam crisp up, cheese starts to brown, etc. Add pepper, oregano, hot sauce, etc. I ate tons of these but my own terrible children will not eat them.

Also: pickled herring was good for dares with distant relatives during holiday gatherings.
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:38 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't think there's any comparison between delicious pickled herring and sketchy potted "meat". I really can't fathom $17 (USD!) for that chicken, but I did think it was unsporting of him to mash it to bits with his fork rather than following the instructions on the can.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 8:14 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Everybody talks up Spam musubi, which is delicious, don't get me wrong, but truthfully the best way to enjoy Spam is in ramen.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:32 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just finished eating a bowl of pickled herring and cheese curds for a late-night snack, when I signed in and read this thread. You guys are my kind of people.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:38 PM on November 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Spam is fantastic cubed, fried till crispy, then eaten with rice and a nice curry sauce.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:39 PM on November 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Canned sardines and pickled herring are all well and good, but when it comes to your canned fish products, you need to go get you some smoked sprats. So, so good.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 8:55 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Everybody talks up Spam musubi, which is delicious, don't get me wrong, but truthfully the best way to enjoy Spam is in ramen.

You are wrong. The words you are looking for are fried rice.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 8:59 PM on November 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Pigs feet are okay, but bbqed pigs tails are devine.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:11 PM on November 22, 2016

I used to see canned chickens and other weird canned meats in the little grocery in northern Ontario near our family cottage. We always wondered who bought the things. We tried most of them except for the chicken. Too expensive to take a gamble on. No electricity at the cottage meant canned goods were ideal. The one thing we used to get all the time was canned bacon, but I haven't seen that in decades.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:16 PM on November 22, 2016

If you enjoy weird food, please enjoy James Lileks' Gallery of Regrettable Food. The meat entries are especially fun.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 9:57 PM on November 22, 2016

B&M Brown Bread in a can? With raisins?

3 year shelf life "for maximum flavor."
posted by Marky at 10:40 PM on November 22, 2016

Actually not that different from steamed brown bread, and pretty tasty!
posted by offalark at 10:52 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

My wife made a pumpkin pie out of a can of pumpkin she found in my house,,,,, it was from 2000 purchased by my ex that I had been divorced from over 10 yrs previous.

Not bad, a little metallic. I called it the millennium pie.
posted by boilermonster at 11:16 PM on November 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think the product is intended for when fresh chickens no longer exist.

Getting a Threads vibe from it now.
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:47 PM on November 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Grocery Outlet has expired cans of turtle soup for 50 cents. Last time I ate a reptile I was really lost. This was so much better. I'm going back tomorrow.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:04 AM on November 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

We had Hormel canned tamales for dinner just last month, and we have two more large cans in the pantry for a future meal. We have to make a special trip to Walmart to buy them, as Wegman's doesn't carry them. I cook them in a skillet and them melt a bunch of cheese over it just before serving. Yum.
posted by COD at 7:11 AM on November 23, 2016

He seemed really eager to give that ground beef the benefit of the doubt that the other products didn't really get for some reason. I like the way the titles are sort of clickbait via existential horror though — WHAT ARE WE EATING? WHY??

Spam is great with rice, but it also makes a pretty mean Hawaiian pizza.
posted by lucidium at 7:15 AM on November 23, 2016

Mom's whole family loves pickled pigs' feet. I never got around to trying them before I gave up meat.

We used to have fried SPAM in sandwiches or as a breakfast meat, though. Mom would keep the can in the refrigerator so it would be really solid, then slice it thin and fry it in oil in the cast iron skillet.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:41 AM on November 23, 2016

Spam is great with rice, but it also makes a pretty mean Hawaiian pizza.

I believe the canonical Hawaiian pizza uses Canadian bacon instead? And also it's not that great, because pineapple and tomato sauce is a weird combination? (Pineapple on white pizza is amazing, though.)

I can't really see the pineapple/spam combo working the way pineapple/bacon does, for some reason. I dunno.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:39 AM on November 23, 2016

I lived off (fresh) potted meat sandwiches in university: trogging up to the butcher/grocer in Townhead to wait in line for our tasty meat-derived repast. It was so good. And cheaper than pie, beans and chips at the Strathclyde cafeteria too.
posted by scruss at 8:49 AM on November 23, 2016

Spam fried up with leftover potatoes and whatever vegetables from the past couple of meals could be fried alongside it, served with apple sauce was one of the default standby recipes of my childhood, for those times when oh hell there's nothing in the pantry/no time to cook/we need to save some money this week.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:51 AM on November 23, 2016

B&M Brown Bread in a can? With raisins?

It's so good! The bread is moist and slightly sweet. Spread cream cheese on it and serve it with baked beans.
posted by belladonna at 8:53 AM on November 23, 2016

> I can't really see the pineapple/spam combo working the way pineapple/bacon does, for some reason. I dunno.

It kinds just reads as extra salty ham to me, so it fills a bacon-like niche, but now I'm suddenly questioning whether I have actually made a Hawaiian pizza with spam. I've definitely made pizza with spam and thought it was good, and I like me a Hawaiian pizza, but the actual combination might have just been an imagination turned false memory. Guess I'll have to test it out.
posted by lucidium at 9:20 AM on November 23, 2016

It kinds just reads as extra salty ham to me, so it fills a bacon-like niche, but now I'm suddenly questioning whether I have actually made a Hawaiian pizza with spam.

Isn't Hawaiian pizza usually made with Canadian bacon, which is more ham-like than bacon-like? Spam seems like a perfect cromulent substitute.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:20 AM on November 23, 2016

Huh. In Canada, Hawaiian pizza is made with ham. And "Canadian bacon" is called peameal bacon.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:02 AM on November 23, 2016

I mean, it's all just different cuts of pig meat, if you want to get really reductionist about it.

But "bacon" generally refers to belly loin, "Canadian bacon" is back loin, and "ham" as a cut of meat apparently refers to the back leg. Spam seems to be primarily pork shoulder with a bit of "ham" (in the sense of back leg meat).

Mostly, I think the texture of spam is a bit off for a pizza topping. And I also suspect it might be a little too salty to taste right in a pizza context. But I could be wrong!
posted by tobascodagama at 11:12 AM on November 23, 2016

I don't know what is was that triggered me to ask about scrapple or Spam but my mom smiled and got them and made them for breakfast and I liked them. I was always underweight as a kid and I guess it tasted good because of that. I went on a 28 day Outward Bound course and was hungry the whole time and lost weight when I should have been putting on muscle. Staff asked for complaints at the end and they were shocked at mine but I was used to being hungry and thought it was normal.

In basic training, they'd load up a plate with eggs and waffles or pancakes and some kind of meat and dollop a ladle of syrup over everything even if you asked them not to. It was gross, but everybody ate it because we'd just jogged a few miles. My frame filled out and I put on 50 fucking pounds of solid muscle in 9 weeks, which is impossible, busted my uniforms. I could suddenly pick someone up and use their own momentum to throw them far into the air. I took the platoon bully down when he started on me and connected his head with a metal post. That was unreal. He was huge and one arm around his neck and the other around the pole and I could squeeze the two together. People cheered. I didn't finish him, he was 16 and we became friends. I was finally getting enough to eat. I was never afraid of anybody again and that's become a liability cause I'm too old for this.

Once a week they had rabbit and I'd do thirds on that and the other Privates would comment about how fast I ate. We had limited time. The cooks were local and my diet reflected that. Total heart attack for me now, that diet.

I'm not attracted to most of those things. I might eat Spam again.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 6:39 PM on November 23, 2016

When I first came to Alaska I noticed canned whole chicken for the first time. Actually a lot of canned meats and fish that seemed unusual to me. I've come to realize it is a cultural-geographic thing. For a long time having canned foods was essential because of a lack of reliable refrigeration, electricity, living in the bush, living on fishing boats for long amounts of time, also stuff that came with the army. People get a taste for it and that taste will last maybe through another generation or two, or it takes on a special connotation like lutefisk. (Let's face it, no one would willingly put lutefisk in their mouth if it wasn't a tradition.)

That canned chicken is never out of stock at my tiny grocery store.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 8:04 PM on November 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

Once a week they had rabbit and I'd do thirds on that and the other Privates would comment about how fast I ate. We had limited time. The cooks were local and my diet reflected that. Total heart attack for me now, that diet.

Probably not... rabbit is so low in fat it can lead to starvation.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:06 PM on November 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

christopherius - true story, my mom got that cookbook as a gag gift from a cousin with woeful social asiprations. I had to have been ten years old. we read through it after christmas and marked all the recipes we recognized/had made before. as I recall, mom used a couple of them as inspiration for a few dinners.
posted by floweringjudas at 11:36 PM on November 23, 2016