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Captain Ned wrote:

Those Euro prices are in kilos, so it's 10€/pound.

D'oh! Should've caught that.

Captain Ned wrote:

Also, pot roast in its braising sauce and beet stew both completely meet the definition of "beef in gravy"

Dunno about you, but I'd be rather disappointed to find beet stew when I was expecting beef stew.

just brew it! wrote:

bfg-9000 wrote:

Yes, but do you see cans of "beef" at the grocery?

There are plenty of cans of processed taco filling, sloppy joes etc made of beef but not a one to be found if you search for canned beef. Very unlike say, canned chicken chunks.

https://www.amazon.com/Keystone-Meats-N ... Bbeef&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/Hormel-Roast-Bee ... anned+beef
https://www.amazon.com/Yoders-Canned-Pr ... Bbeef&th=1

I'm going to have to say, I see canned beef in various forms everywhere and if you look carefully enough, you can find really good stuff too.

bfg-9000 wrote:

No, I was expecting that's why you can't find a french can of "canned horse." It would be called something else and processed

Um, cheval en conserve?

Reminds me of a M*A*S*H episode near the end of the run where Charles and Margaret share one of his "French treasures" recently shipped in, namely a canned cooked pheasant. They both end up a-barfin' and Margaret accuses Charles of poisoning her

just brew it! wrote:

Dunno about you, but I'd be rather disappointed to find beet stew when I was expecting beef stew.

Insert Bronx raspberry here.

And yes, if I opened a can of Dinty Stew and found borscht, I would be quite unhappy.

Captain Ned wrote:

bfg-9000 wrote:

No, I was expecting that's why you can't find a french can of "canned horse." It would be called something else and processed

Um, cheval en conserve?

Reminds me of a M*A*S*H episode near the end of the run where Charles and Margaret share one of his "French treasures" recently shipped in, namely a canned cooked pheasant. They both end up a-barfin' and Margaret accuses Charles of poisoning her

I don't know about eating canned pheasant, but if you gave me a decent brand of French canned horse I would eat it just to see what horse meat taste like.

whm1974 wrote:

I don't know about eating canned pheasant, but if you gave me a decent brand of French canned horse I would eat it just to see what horse meat taste like.

Tried to find one, but with no success. Horse meat is known to be much less fatty than beef cow, so I'd wager that your best analog would be bison/buffalo, which is similarly low-fat compared to beef cow.

Captain Ned wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

I don't know about eating canned pheasant, but if you gave me a decent brand of French canned horse I would eat it just to see what horse meat taste like.

Tried to find one, but with no success. Horse meat is known to be much less fatty than beef cow, so I'd wager that your best analog would be bison/buffalo, which is similarly low-fat compared to beef cow.

I wonder if cultured meat does takes off if there would be a big enough market for canned horse and buffalo meat?

whm1974 wrote:

I wonder if cultured meat does takes off if there would be a big enough market for canned horse and buffalo meat?

Well, should this iniquity ever come to pass, I sincerely doubt that cans will be the carrier and that vac-pacs will be the preferred sales medium. I know we're headed there at some point, though it doesn't mean I have to like it.

There's a lot of canned horse meat from Kazakhstan on eBay. It's the land of the Scythians where horses are believed to originally have been domesticated.

Horse meat has nearly as much Omega-3 as salmon despite being low fat so is a healthy meat. There was a pretty good recent article on why it's always been iffy in the US politically.

I would not expect many cans from France because they're not a large producer of horses, but would expect some from Mexico, Argentina and Mongolia though can't find any (as said, probably called something else). Strangely most cans online seem to be from Russia even though it's not a large horse producing nation but a large horse consuming one--they import meat to put them into cans.

Never underestimate the cleverness of Americans looking for a marketing niche--the US is undoubtedly a large beef producing nation thanks to corn, and I found canned plain minimally processed beef chunks in broth (exactly like chicken) from Essenhaus, Lehman's and Grabill Country. They look pretty similar to JBI's can of Yoders that is intended for emergency food storage.

Captain Ned wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

I wonder if cultured meat does takes off if there would be a big enough market for canned horse and buffalo meat?

Well, should this iniquity ever come to pass, I sincerely doubt that cans will be the carrier and that vac-pacs will be the preferred sales medium. I know we're headed there at some point, though it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Maybe both? I like can goods simply because I can get them on sale every so often and keep them around in case of emergencies and/or for when I'm broke. Don't get me wrong, I do prefer and buy fresh meat and other foods.

whm1974 wrote:

Maybe both? I like can goods simply because I can get them on sale every so often and keep them around in case of emergencies and/or for when I'm broke. Don't get me wrong, I do prefer and buy fresh meat and other foods.

Canning is/should be dead. Sterilization of vacuum-sealed packages through irradiation should (IMO) become the preferred long-term survivalist storage solution.

Captain Ned wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Maybe both? I like can goods simply because I can get them on sale every so often and keep them around in case of emergencies and/or for when I'm broke. Don't get me wrong, I do prefer and buy fresh meat and other foods.

Canning is/should be dead. Sterilization of vacuum-sealed packages through irradiation should (IMO) become the preferred long-term survivalist storage solution.

Canned meats are cheaper and easier for me to get than anything vacuum-sealed and irradiated.

Eh, cans are good for at least 10 years while 2 liter soda bottles made of much thicker plastic than MRE bags can't even hold their carbonation past 2 years. Canned foods are actually safe for well over this (plenty of stories of people trying WW2 c-rations and such) but the quality goes away, turning into soft mush and changing colors. Plus the FDA didn't get around to banning lead solder in cans until 1995, and they still mostly use epoxy coatings inside today (epoxy is half Bisphenol-A). More time means more leaching.

Current MRE bags are rated 3 years but certain items like applesauce and cheese can already turn nasty colors like black within that time. If you can keep them cool in storage I'd still not eat anything wet after ~5 years (the dry crackers would last about forever). I think one big advantage of irradiated is for things that would badly lose their texture when cooked to the canning temperature of 240F like peas, but most people buy cheaper frozen for this. Frozen is of course not emergency survival food except perhaps where it can be buried in permafrost.

BTW freeze dried corn and peas (not just dried!) are actually quite tasty and would have an indefinite shelf-life but even more expensive. Mashed potato flakes always seem to taste terrible (dry granules taste a bit better).

I usually go to the more budget friendly grocery stores like Food Ruler and Food For Less instead of the more expensive places like Shop n Save or Wal-Mart. Or God forbid Schnucks. And yes, both Shop n Save and Walmart are expensive compared to places like Food Ruler and Food for Less.

However it is looking like I'm going to have to go elsewhere besides budget stores to get other flavors of Spam beside the Classic. I do prefer my canned meats to be "Deviled up" a bit or at least more seasoned then they are.

I'll go and check Food For Less next time I go to the store since they do have a larger selection of Hispanic and Asian style foods than Ruler Foods does.

Drat I'm having brain farts. The Food 4 Less store I'm referring to is actually Save-A-Lot.

Both Food 4 Less and Ruler Foods are Kroger, largest grocer in the USA. Ever visit Germany's Aldi? It's like the discount branch of Trader Joe's so they have some very different stuff. Their archrival Lidl has only made it as far west as Ohio so far. Both are also far cheaper than Walmart.

You know, I have gotten many more replies to this thread than I expected. In fact I was thinking that most folks here would think I'm really gross for even having a craving for Spam let alone actually eating the stuff. But like I said Spam doesn't taste too bad once you spiced it up a bit.

Can you make SPAM edible? Yes.
Does it ever taste as good as ham? No.
Mick Dundee said "You can live on it, but it tastes like _____."

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Can you make SPAM edible? Yes.
Does it ever taste as good as ham? No.
Mick Dundee said "You can live on it, but it tastes like _____."

Oh I agree that canned ham does taste much better than Spam, but you can make either one taste even better with hot sauce or even soy sauce.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Can you make SPAM edible? Yes.
Does it ever taste as good as ham? No.
Mick Dundee said "You can live on it, but it tastes like _____."

To be fair, not many things taste as good as ham!

just brew it! wrote:

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Can you make SPAM edible? Yes.
Does it ever taste as good as ham? No.
Mick Dundee said "You can live on it, but it tastes like _____."

To be fair, not many things taste as good as ham!

Well made bacon?

tanker27 wrote:

HELL yes. Kewpie Mayo is some versatile stuff. You can season it in any and every way.

I meant, Kewpie's mustard-yellowish roasted sesame dressing?
https://www.kewpie.co.jp/english/produc ... ssing.html

I sometimes put a bit on crisply fried "less salt" Spam or wedge fries, when I'm in the mood for a nutty-sweet dip. Just found that it's also great with TGIF's Cheddar Bacon potato skins. Going fast as I speak.

OH yeah that stuff is good. But then again I like that umami taste of roasted sesame. I've had just about every product Kewpie has. But their Wasabi and Yuzu dressings are effing phenomenal! If you can find it you NEED to try the stuff.

bfg-9000 wrote:

...McDonald's in Hawaii has served spam since at least 2002 to go with their staples of saimin and (actual deep fried, not baked) taro pies. Burger King followed up in 2007 but also failed to make it a proper plate lunch with macaroni salad...

Taro cream puffs are up there. McDonald's taro pies like the ones in Hong Kong and Japan are good with their soft ice cream or creamy mushroom soup, people there dip the pies into their bowls.

Macaroni salad served with pineapple-glazed spam on rice would have worked, Burger King missed that one.

...Someone has of the various award-winning 7-11 musubis as well.

I would have wrapped those in more nori, or made them more onigiri-like:

tanker27 wrote:

OH yeah that stuff is good. But then again I like that umami taste of roasted sesame. I've had just about every product Kewpie has. But their Wasabi and Yuzu dressings are effing phenomenal! If you can find it you NEED to try the stuff.

It seems that the Yuzu you mentioned is good on seafood poke dishes (also great with lemon Coke). I'm going to get a bottle for flavoring my donburi takeouts!


Try mixing garlic bits of S&B chili oil into your steamed rice. It will launch your spam or anything else to a whole new level.

About that 7-11 award, well every region has their own local favorite In-N-Out like cheap eats place that's really a popular hangout mostly because it's cheap and good enough so wins all of the polls. Hilariously on Oahu that's Zippy's which is mostly known for their chili. And a bakery. They do have burgers and fries, burritos and fried chicken too. I mean you can order spam and Lau Laus and Loco Moco plate lunches but they specialize in exotic "mainland" food!

So 7-11 routinely wins "best" spam musubi mostly because it's so cheap and honestly hard to really mess up. It is possible though:

I would've expected McDonald's to make this:

While they were at it they could've sold this backpack:

I'd eat the one in the middle.

That jellied whole chicken is thoroughly disturbing.

I put canned chicken breast meat in a pasta salad with elbow macaroni, green pepper, onion, colby cheese, and mayonnaise. It's pretty tasty with club crackers. Can't imagine getting it shaped like a whole chicken though.

derFunkenstein wrote:

That jellied whole chicken is thoroughly disturbing.

But the can says "Home Style Goodness"!

(I know when I think home-style cooking, the first thing that comes to mind is a pale, slimy, whole, pre-cooked chicken sliding out of a metal can, accompanied by a squishy wet sucking sound, followed by a loud "plop"!)

Edit: I'm also curious regarding whether the producer did any selective breeding to ensure that the chickens they use are approximately can-sized (and shaped).