The Old-School Canned Vegetable Everyone Added To Casseroles In The '70s And '80s

Back in the 1970s and '80s, when casseroles ruled, there was one brand of vegetables that often found its way into those dishes along with ingredients like left-over hot dogs and cream of mushroom soup. One-dish meals, after all, required some veggies for a bit of a nutritional boost. It was called Veg-All and it was (and still is) a can filled with potatoes, green beans, carrots, celery, corn, peas, and — the bane of many children — lima beans. Perhaps your parents or grandparents even made you the brand's own Veg-All casserole in an old-fashioned electric skillet from the recipe cards that were often available in the grocery store next to the cans.

While casseroles may have had their heyday during those decades, Veg-All is actually much, much older, dating back to 1926. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it began life in the Midwest where casseroles still have culinary cachet (or hot dish as it's more typically called in Wisconsin and other parts of the Upper Midwest). In 1890, a former school teacher and grocer named William Larsen started a canning company in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the William Larsen Canning Company, as an extension of the farm he'd launched eight years earlier. After his death in 1922, his four sons continued as the Larsen Company and introduced the first canned mixed vegetables to the market as Veg-All.

The Larsen Company's Veg-All achieved national recognition through its heavy marketing efforts in print — a 1928 newspaper ad billed it as "a pleasing combination of garden vegetables ready to serve" — and through its many free recipes for dishes like simple vegetable soup. The brand helped popularize canned mixed vegetables and by the 1970s was a must-have for casseroles. Larsen continued to produce Veg-All for decades. The company merged with Dean Foods in 1986, and from there, Veg-All went through a multitude of owners including Birdseye, Sager Creek Vegetable Company, and Del Monte.

Veg-All is still available today, a century after it debuted, from McCall Farms, which acquired the brand in 2017. If you're craving a little nostalgia, or just an easy meal, plenty of throw-back recipes use Veg-All, including its own Veg-All casserole that combines the veggies with condensed cream of chicken soup, mayo, cheddar cheese, and (of course) Ritz-style crackers on top. Perhaps you should serve it with a vintage appetizer no one makes anymore, like gelatin salad, which, according to that 1928 ad, you can make with a can of Veg-All.