The Old-School Canned Meat That You Probably Wouldn't Buy Today

Canned meat is a useful ingredient in a pinch — take the infinite uses of Spam and all its different flavors, for example. Then there's the utility of canned fish, which is also a superstar in the kitchen. But some types of canned meat may be best left by the wayside, like the disastrous canned deviled ham, and okay, old-school canned pork brains in milk (which makes the deviled ham look like child's play). But there's one surprising canned meat that used to be more common in grocery stores — but probably not something you would go out of your way to buy today.

That would be a whole canned chicken. Yep, you read that correctly, a whole canned chicken. Imagine a small bird, maybe the size of a Cornish game hen, squeezed inside a large, tall can. Open that lid and the whole carcass comes out, loose, barely keeping itself together. And unlike roast chicken, it doesn't have a crisp skin; it's got the texture of a piece of meat that's been simmered for a day too long. And before you ask me how I know all these finer details, it's because I have, in fact, tried a whole chicken in a can while they were more common on supermarket shelves.

The whole canned chicken I used to see at the store was by a brand called Sweet Sue. The chicken within it was small, and the can weighed just over 3 pounds, but that included the broth that accompanied the chicken. I tried this stuff out of morbid curiosity years ago, but I still remember the distinct sulfuric smell emanating from it. I also remember the way the carcass completely fell apart after it slid out of the can. 

The instructions suggest you heat it by cooking it in the oven, but frankly, that didn't do it any favors — the chicken was mushy and flabby, yet somehow tacky and dry at the same time, and just not something I enjoyed, aside from the sheer novelty of it. That being said, I'd never mock an ingredient meant for its utility, but I would not exactly recommend it in terms of culinary satisfaction. A whole canned chicken is more of an emergency ration than a gourmet item, plus as far as I can tell, even online marketplaces like Amazon don't carry that product anymore. I haven't seen it at a grocery store in years, either. Because we now have so many other canned chicken options, all of them deboned, it's possible that this whole canned bird will eventually go the way of the dinosaur. And even given the option, I am pretty sure I'd be fine never eating it again — maybe others would feel the same exact way.