Canned Foods

[fiftydollars]

Has anyone actually eaten and enjoyed tinned mushrooms?

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I have never found Chinese straw mushrooms, fresh, whenever I have needed them. So I have used the tinned variety and can't say I mind them...

Are they necessarily that much worse than dried mushrooms?

[snowangel]

I have hunted and hunted and hunted up and down every last bleeding aisle in every supermarket in town (just about) for that canned brown bread, and there seems to be some law on the books that says that brown bread is illegal here because I can't find it anywhere!    But "Baking Illustrated" has a recipe for it, and next time I make baked beans, I'm whipping up a batch of this, too.

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At every grocery I've ever been to, it's with the baked beans. Try there. Otherwise, you are SOL for the canned and will have to bake it yourself.

[Mabelline]

dingo, you asked a ways back how long to safely consume homecanned stuff, and just going on my experience, if you are new to canning, eat that stuff within 6-12 months. It takes a while to get used to the laws according to Ball about canning. Watch out for your stuff like green beans (no acid), any signs of weird growths on the lid (bad seal) and be sure to thoroughly parse out the subject before starting.

On a separate note, when I was about 5, the Army Corps of Engineers came around to all the farms in the area where I lived, and talked the goodwives out of their oldest home canned foods. My father found out that the canned goods were taken to Utah and set up in one of the fake villages where they carried out A-Bomb tests. 'course we never knew if the food made it, but my mom always maintained her MIL's canning would take more than an A-Bomb to go bad.

Edited January 11, 2005 by Mabelline (log)

[Jaymes]

Many many moons ago, when the planets were young, my mom would take one end of the bread can off, recover with tinfoil, and steam in a pan of water, halfway up the can. On the top of baked beans is excellent. And the cream cheese, yep, especially with crushed pineapple mixed in.

Another thing you can do is to take one of those collapsable steamer-thingies and set that on top of the beans, and then put the bread in it, and put the lid on. That keeps it up out of the beans, if that's what you prefer.

Yes....this does seem to have turned into 'the brown bread thread,' but that's one of the most bee-oootiful things about eGullet. You just never know where any thread will lead.

There's been lots of good information here, including recipes, and to think that it all started with...."an apology....."

[Suzanne F]

Fifi, if your Chinese markets have good produce departments, they might have fresh water chestnuts. But maybe not all the time.

What they look like is, well, sort of like regular tree chestnuts (brown shell), but pointy at one end, and usually pretty much covered with dirt. You have to rinse off the dirt before peeling, but the peeling can be done with a paring knife -- just cut off the brown outside and get down to the sweet, crunchy white or ivory inside. A lot like jicama but much, much smaller. Like jicama, though, they stay nice and crisp and sweet when you cook them. Mmmmmmmmmm, fresh water chestnuts. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, jicama.

[fifi]

Our Asian markets are wonderful for produce. I have even looked up the fresh water chestnuts to see what they look like. The really really big store is a long drive so I don't get there that often. Perhaps they are seasonal. I wouldn't be surprised if they were grown around here. We have a large Asian population and some pretty large growers. Most of that goes to the Asian markets and restaurants. (We don't have real farmer's markets.)

I guess I am stuck with canned. But I will ask next time I am in Hong Kong Market.

[SethG]

I see some pretty avid bread bakers here extolling the virtues of (shudder) canned bread, so I think I'm going to have to give it a try. You can't possibly pay $4 a can for the stuff, though, right? (That was the price on the link above.) For $4 you can buy really stupendous fresh bread. Or a premium bar of chocolate. Or a thousand things that just have to be better than canned bread.

[Mabelline]

Yeah, but Seth, how much are you willing to pay for a memory?

[Susan G]

Canned lychees. I could live happily for the rest of my life on canned lychees. Mandarin oranges for tapioca afternoons snacks.

I love canned sauerkraut.............washed, cooked with chicken broth, sliced garlic and caraway seeds: You can't tell it wasn't put up by your own mother!

Canned chickpeas for hummus or channa dal curries.

Beets for quick borsht.

[Pan]

I have never found Chinese straw mushrooms, fresh, whenever I have needed them. So I have used the tinned variety and can't say I mind them...

Are they necessarily that much worse than dried mushrooms?

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Yes. They suck!

But remember, chacun 'a son gout.

[Pan]

Our Asian markets are wonderful for produce. I have even looked up the fresh water chestnuts to see what they look like. The really really big store is a long drive so I don't get there that often. Perhaps they are seasonal.[...]

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They are indeed, as are fresh bamboo shoots.

[Pan]

Canned lychees.  I could live happily for the rest of my life on canned lychees.  Mandarin oranges for tapioca afternoons snacks.[...]

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As long as there's no metallic taste (which probably means, wash the oranges), I've always found canned mandarin oranges OK. Canned lychees have their purposes, without doubt. But I still remember when I ate my first fresh lychee in China, and what a revelation that was! There's a kind of unique sweet/tangy/perfumy taste of high-quality fresh lychees that is never present in the canned lychees in syrup, and it's that taste that makes lychees one of my favorite fruits in the world. I feel so lucky that the delicious fresh lychees are flown in every year from Guangdong to New York nowadays, and I wait for their season so that I can appreciate them then.

[cakewench]

Oh, good lord, leave it to eGullet to bring back my canned bread memories. I had completely forgotten about the stuff. But, like everyone else here down memory lane, I really liked it at the time. I'm sure I'd still like it, actually.

The worst canned veg are peas. hatehatehate them. Asparagus aren't far behind, but they weren't foisted upon me as a child, so I don't have quite the degree of pent-up animosity towards them.

[PCL]

could you please elaborate on canned bread??

[andiesenji]

The canned Boston Brown Bread is much like a plum pudding when you get right down to it.

A little dryer, not quite as dense and the plain contains no fruit.

The first time I tasted it, when I was in the Army, I instantly thought of the steamed puddings we had when I was a child. One was even made in a cylindrical shape in a two-part mold and sliced for tea sandwiches.

My roommate at that time was from Philadelphia and made an excursion to a grocery store and came back with a big jar of baked beans and a can of the brown bread and a package of chream cheese.

On a totally illegal hot plate, she heated the jar of baked beans in a pan of water, sliced the brown bread and spread it with cream cheese to make little sandwiches.

We sat on the floor and scarfed up the goodies and I was an instant devotee of the canned brown bread.

[Jaymes]

I see some pretty avid bread bakers here extolling the virtues of (shudder) canned bread, so I think I'm going to have to give it a try.  You can't possibly pay $4 a can for the stuff, though, right?  (That was the price on the link above.) 

I think I pay $2-2.50 or so for it in grocery stores. And sometimes it is hard to find in the store. Back east, seems like it is usually displayed next to the baked beans, but in my local grocery, it's with the canned bread crumbs.

[Mabelline]

I know this isn't canned, but it goes into my pantry and is absolutely essential this time of year: Wasa Crispbread. I love that stuff! Chicken and wild rice soup with preserved lemon in, then dunk the crispbread in till it softens up.Some good jasmine tea to accompany that, and I can take a nap immediately following. (My rabbit loves it too. Good rabbit.)

[afn33282]

Hey eGullet,

I was frustrated at a restaurant I used to wait at by the tinny smell of the canned artichoke hearts we would use on our Greek salads (packed in water or brine, I forget). Would a most conscientious cook, i.e. Thomas Keller, cook them fresh for his salads, or do canned/jarred products have a flavor all their own, and are subsequently different animals than their just-cooked counterparts? Canned tuna, especially the super-expensive imported, packed in good olive oil stuff, which is supposed to be heavenly and which I have never tasted might be on the same level as a well-cooked piece of fresh tuna, but seems to be definately a different thing altogether. What should one cook fresh instead of using the jarred/canned bits, and what should one respect as a unique product in its own right?

Thank you.

[Carlovski]

There are some products where the canning process, and in particular the maturation in the can/jar can improve the product - such as good quality canned tunda or sardines (although I know some people disagree). In regard to the tuna, tinned tuna and fresh tuna are very different beasts - both can be equally good, and equally bad.

Other products are probably made worse by the process, but are balanced by the fact that the ingredients are better than what you can get fresh locally or in that season - good quality tinned tomatoes or some varieties of canned/jarred peppers.

Then there are the products which are a bit worse than fresh/dried, but the convenience is so much better that most of the time they are fine (Not for some recipes of course)- I'm thinking chickpeas and beans of various kinds. Good french petit pois are good too.

Some things are just awful though, and should not be touched, tinned potatoes, tinned carrots for starters.

Also remember that a decent supply of tins can get you out of all sorts of no shopping related emergencies.

[Anna N]

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Some things are just awful though, and should not be touched, tinned potatoes, tinned carrots for starters.

Also remember that a decent supply of tins can get you out of all sorts of no shopping related emergencies.

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Tinned potatoes - I would have said GAH at one time, however, the Del Monte brand potatoes when thoroughly rinsed, dried and glazed have got me out of a few tight spots. I would not use them for anything else. I think the rinsing and the glazing overcomes the chemical taste and they are just palatable in an emergency. Tinned carrots - NEVER.

[BarbaraY]

Other than tomatoes when they are out of season, I buy tinned beets because the ones in the stores are huge ugly monsters.

Right now the Farmer's Market has lovely baby ones so I don't have to rely on the cans.

[Ducky]

I think it depends entirely on the quality of the product. At Fouchon in Paris you can find a great variety of perfect little vegetables is glass jars and tinned pate's etc - and while the fresh article is arguably always better - there are occasions when such substitutes are just fine. Not better or worse - just different.

[aliwaks]

I do have a certain nostalgic fondness for canned sweet potatoes, drained mashed & mixed with canned crushed pineapple, oj, maple syrup then covered with tiny marshmallows ..Thanksgivings of my youth.

When I was in India as a child we poured condensed milk on toast that we made on the wood burning stove on the front porch of our bed-sit, same milk sweetened our tea, haven't had it since then but can still taste it.

Other than that have canned cardomon flavored condensed milk I picked up in a Middle Eastern market in West London..still waiting for the right recipe to use it,

Have canned harissa, coconut milk, tuna in oil (pasta) and tuna in water (tuna salad), anchovies (though prefer jarred packed in salt), got a tremendous canned foie gras in Paris, beans as I am way too lazy to cook from dried, and canned creamed corn is just what it is and nothing can compare. (Childhood meal, roast chicken, frozen creamed spinach, canned creamed corn, carrot sticks, brother would add ketchup to all )

Also quite fond of canned jellied cranberry sauce but the can has to be kept in the freezer a few hours before opening as my Bubbe Bella always did for special meals,

Ice cold canned peaches (as a side dish to fried chicken, mashed potatoes & corn...my brothers favorite meal).

Canned sauerkraut mainly because it comes in small portions, tinned baked beans...yum with added mustard, sauteed onions & maple syrup.

My Nanny Mattie made her tsimmes with canned carrots and sweet noodle kugel with canned fruit cocktail, always looked for the slice with the cherry, in fact fought visciously with my cousins for that slice since each can usually only had like one or two cherries in it.

Guess I have many memories of canned foods I didn't even realize til now. Thanks.