Once Popular Canned Foods That No One Eats Any More

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Prior to the start of the 1800s, the only options for preserving food were to pickle, salt, smoke, or dry it. This limited the types of foods that could be preserved, as well as how long they could be kept. As wars raged across Europe in the late 1700s, however, the French government decided to develop a way of shipping shelf-stable food to their soldiers and seamen — this is how canned food was born (via History). By 1810, canned food was being produced across the continent.

The canned food industry was valued at more than $91.4 billion in 2018 (via Allied Market Research). While more canned foods are sold today than ever before, anyone who lived and grocery shopped in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s knows that the 20th century produced far more odd canned foods than you'll find today. Let's take a look at some of the canned foods that were once popular in the industry's heyday.

This popular kid-friendly canned food was a staple of many American childhoods. While it's still available in supermarkets today, it doesn't seem to have the same appeal that it once did. This could be in part due to a so-called war on red meat (via Time). In October 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified processed meat — including hot dogs — as a Group 1 carcinogen. This means that there is evidence linking processed meat to cancer.

Of course, you'll still find no shortage of hot dogs at ball games and in your local grocery store's cold case. You'll also still find classic SpaghettiOs with Franks. This canned food features the brand's popular slippery O-shaped pasta in tomato sauce, topped with bite-sized slices of hot dogs, which, according to the can, are made with chicken, pork, and beef. Designed to make it easier for kids to eat spaghetti without the mess, SpaghettiOs are still a kid-food staple, even if the frank version has lost some traction in recent years.

When you think about canned food, you likely think about ingredients that are quick and easy to prepare. You also likely assume they can be easily stored for months — or even years — before expiring. Among the most popular canned foods are tuna, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce (via USA Today).

Cheeseburgers might be the last food you'd expect to find in a can. These backyard barbecue staples aren't quick or even simple to prepare. Additionally, prepping them and then placing them on a shelf for months on end likely won't net you a meal that you'll be ready or willing to eat — unless, perhaps, it was a McDonald's burger that will never rot. However, these facts haven't stopped manufacturers from canning an entire cheeseburger, toppings and all.

While a variety of canned cheeseburgers are available today, they're mainly found on the web and seem to be aimed at preppers and hikers. They're not exactly popular among your average college student looking to save some money on their next dorm room meal.

While the first evidence of tamales dates back to 8,000 B.C. (via Munchery), the history of this tasty corn husk-wrapped dish in the U.S. began in the mid-1800s on the West Coast. In cities near the border with Mexico, like San Antonio, Texas, and Los Angeles, Calif., street vendors peddling tamales became so common that they were often considered a nuisance. As a result, officials tried to ban them.

Today, street vendors selling fresh tamales are far rarer. While you'll still find them on the menus of Mexican restaurants across the nation, those looking for a quick and tasty tamale snack might go looking in their local grocery store. Cooking tamales from scratch takes tons of time and a lot of skill to get right. Microwavable tamales simplify the process — and theoretically, so do canned tamales.

Canned tamales were first created in the early 1900s at a time when tamales from street vendors were still pretty common (per The Historic Foodie). While canned tamales are still available today, they're a rare sight, likely because of the widespread availability of frozen tamales or fresh alternatives.

The 1970s, '80s, and '90s saw a boom in movie tie-ins with popular food items, particularly junk food (via Geeks). From cereal boxes to soda cans, popular film characters and franchises adorned just about every type of food package you can imagine. Some tie-ins were more popular — and more appetizing — than others.

Smurfs Beef Ravioli & Pasta by Chef Boyardee was yet another movie tie-in product of the 1980s. Luckily, despite the colorful characters that decorated each bright blue can, the pasta inside looked pretty normal. Instead, Chef Boyardee was simply cashing in on the Smurfs craze that swept the U.S. for much of the decade (per Like Totally 80s). While you can still enjoy canned ravioli by Chef Boyardee today, the Smurfs branded can fell out of fashion several decades ago. Several other franchise partnerships have appeared on Chef Boyardee cans over the years, but this is one food from the 1980s that isn't likely to make a comeback any time soon!

While spray-style cans of Cheese Whiz continue to be a popular, if not questionable pantry item, other varieties of canned cheese have largely fallen out of favor. Cougar Gold is a type of canned cheese that's actually produced by a creamery owned by Washington State University. This strange cheese would be more at home on a fancy charcuterie board than it would be beside a can of sprayable cheese.

In the 1940s, a professor at Washington State answered the U.S. government's call to produce cheese that could be better preserved to be sent overseas to troops (via Atlas Obscura). Before Cougar Gold, the only option for keeping cheese safe to ship was to dip in several layers of wax. This process was prone to cracking, which would cause the cheese to spoil. Because bacteria grow easily on living foods like cheese and yogurt, simply placing it in a can wasn't an option.

Then, Cougar Gold was born. A special bacteria culture is added to its cheese, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the can to keep it from blowing out, preventing bacteria growth. The result is a crumbly cheese that's described as creamy and milky sweet, with some gentle sharpness. Despite the ground-breaking process, this cheese hasn't caught on and may be tough to find outside of Ferdinand's Ice Cream Shoppe, located at the Washington State University Creamery.

There was a time when eating every part of the animal — including the brains and other organs — was not only common but a necessity to make the most of any meat available. As far back as Roman times, in the 4th and 5th centuries, brains have been included in cookbooks (via Taste). They were stuffed into sausages, cooked into puddings, and flavored with fruit, wine, and more.

Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find brains on the menu or in the grocery store. As recently as the 1990s, however, the brain was a popular, trendy ingredient. A fried brain sandwich made waves in St. Louis in the 1900s (via the Chicago Tribune), and in the 1970s, canned brain offered grocery shoppers an easy-to-prepare, shelf-stable delicacy (via Culinary Lore).

Rose Pork Brains with Milk Gravy were once an actual canned product available in American grocery stores, especially in the South. As the can suggested, these were often served with scrambled eggs. While these have been a rare find in grocery stores for decades, they are no doubt harder to find today following an outbreak of illness linked to pork brain processing in 2008 (via Slate).

There really is no limit to what companies will put in a can, and Chef Boyardee is no exception. Back in the late 1920s when Chef Boyardee began mass-producing sauces, plastic wasn't yet a thing. In fact, everyday storage conveniences like Tupperware weren't even discovered until the mid-1940s (via South Pack). Chef Boyardee's big moneymaker at the time was a pre-packaged, easy-to-make, nutritious spaghetti dinner. This boxed meal included dried pasta, canned pasta sauce, and yup, even canned grated cheese. You can still find Chef Boyardee canned grated cheese for auction on the web. (We wouldn't recommend using it though.)

Remember that up until the mid-1900s, plastic was a newly discovered concept. It was so nouveau that the "House of the Future" — a walk-thru attraction built at Disneyland and sponsored by Monsanto's plastics division (via Iconic Houses) — was created out of glass-reinforced plastics (aka fiberglass). This novel home ended up being nearly impossible to break down ... an eerie premonition of our current worldwide plastic dilemma. 

So, with plastic not yet mainstream, how else was Chef Boyardee supposed to package shelf-stable foods like sauces and grated cheese? The only available option was the formidable tin can. (Complete with BPA liner, no doubt.)

No, we're not talking about Hawaiian poke, the flavor-packed meal typically comprised of raw cubed fish seasoned with shoyu, furikake seasoning, and other unique ingredients. Poke salet is pretty much the opposite. For one, there's no chopped fish involved. And while it's also considered a traditional dish, poke salet harks from the American South, not the South Pacific. (If your mental map is confused, Tripsavvy explains that although Hawaii is geographically located in the North Pacific Ocean, it's considered to be part of Polynesia, which is located in the easternmost South Pacific region.)

In this case, poke is short for pokeweed, which is an invasive perennial weed native to Eastern North America (via Missouri Botanical Garden). It can be found creeping its way along roadsides in Canada to Minnesota, down to Florida, snaking over to Texas, and settling down in northern Mexico. Poke Salet or pokeweed salad was born out of necessity (via BBC) and is typically found in Appalachian and Southern cuisines. 

One can only assume that consuming this herbaceous undergrowth fell out of popularity because fresh, raw pokeweed will kill you. (We'd hate to think how many people had to figure that out the hard way.) According to Beargrass Thunder (a Kentucky-based community blog), poke salet is made by boiling the less-lethal leaves until the toxins are completely leached out, then sauteing them with bacon fat and onions. (We don't recommend trying this at home.)

Traditionally, deviled ham is just pureed ham with spices. It's considered to be a cross between a salad and a spread. Now, doesn't that sound absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious? But wait, there's more. The traditional homemade recipe also calls for celery, raw white onion, pickles, and mayonnaise. It almost seems like what you'd put in a chicken salad sandwich, but it also has the qualities of something you could spread on a cracker.

Deviled ham is a traditional niche picnic food with Bostonian origins (via National Park Service). The original brand — William Underwood Company — is still found in grocery stores across the United States, where it graces shelves with its diabolical presence (alongside other devious and questionable potted meats). Although it's still in production, deviled ham is not so popular for a majority of the country, unless you're in the South where it remains a kitchen staple, according to Southern Living. It's also not uncommon to see deviled ham being noshed on in Venezuela, per one Redditor's experience.

Perhaps stateside, the diminishing popularity of canned deviled ham stems from the fact that the mascot on the Underwood Company label is a demon flaunting a pitchfork. Doesn't that sound inviting? With a little Southern hospitality (and a good cracker), maybe you too can become a believer. 

Does SlimFast even count as food? Well, the company thinks so. According to the SlimFast website, you're allowed to eat one "sensible" 500-calorie meal (it lists bacon and asparagus pasta and margherita pizza as suitable options) and enjoy three SlimFast-approved snacks a day. Your other two meals are meant to be supplemented with the imitation shake. Now sold in bottles, the drink used to be canned.

Apparently, Unilever (SlimFast's parent company) was incredibly conscious about its own brand image. In 2011, the VP stated that the can didn't have much of a wow factor (via Drug Store News). Basically, cans were boring and mundane and weren't drawing enough attention to dieters who were walking around with the meal-replacement shakes. (If you're following a liquid meal in a can-type diet, the first thing you want is for people to focus on what you're putting into your body, right?) 

That being said, this meal replacement bevvie was hit with not one, but two major recalls in 2009, as noted by Consumer Reports. Only the canned drinks were pulled off the shelves ... and quickly redesigned to be more in line with what the "perfect female form" should look like, according to a case study by Avery Dennison. Because everyone knows that there's only one desirable body shape for both men and women ... what year are we in again?