The Once-Popular Canned Meat No One Eats Anymore (Hint: It's Not Spam)

Canned meat once ruled American kitchens, and some options have even continued to stick around for decades after their heyday. You're probably familiar with Spam, and maybe even deviled ham — two canned foods that were popular 50 years ago. However, there was one product that was equally popular, and it's (surprisingly) also still around: whole canned chicken. Yes, we're talking about an entire chicken, albeit one small enough to fit in a 50-ounce can. Inside, you'll find a fully-cooked chicken — with skin and bones intact — typically packed in a gelatinous chicken broth. Before it fell down the culinary ladder to become fodder for weird food content on the internet, it was once a common and convenient kitchen staple.

Before the likes of James Beard and Julia Child changed American food culture, there was a popular food writer named Poppy Cannon, who focused on using premade ingredients in her recipes. She had a syndicated newspaper column in the 1950s and '60s, and she wrote multiple cookbooks, including "The Can Opener Cook Book." Among her recipes was the Roast Canned Chicken Flambé, which used a whole canned chicken.

Poppy Cannon's recipe included rubbing the canned chicken with oil, rum, and Kitchen Bouquet, a seasoning sauce with brown food dye in it to make it look like the chicken had actually been roasted. She then added a can of cherries, baked the dish, poured more rum onto it, and set the whole thing on fire. This is far from Julia Child's tips for making every meal a work of art and taking your time with prep work. While Cannon's recipe may not have stood the test of time, it earns points for its creativity and resourcefulness.

A flaming display also isn't the only method of preparing whole canned chicken. It dates back at least to 1929, and it's generally safe to eat straight from the can (though you probably want to add sauce and seasoning). A 1947 article from the Wisconsin State Journal included a recipe for a barbecue version that was as simple as pouring barbecue sauce on the chicken and baking it.

While there used to be more companies that sold it, such as Pinafore and Hormel, today it seems that the Sweet Sue brand is the only remaining large seller of canned chicken. This food has been variously described as having a smell like old chicken soup, a soft rubbery skin, a salty taste, and a dry texture. Conversely, some people feel that it's palatable and would work in a chicken dish with the right cooking techniques. You'll have to try it for yourself to determine whether it's one of the quirky 1950s foods that deserve a comeback.