Potted Meat Food Product
Aug. 15th, 2005 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusToday I solved a mystery that's been plagueing me for over a decade.
During a staff meeting at work, the topic came up, as it often seems to in my presence:
Just what the hell is Potted Meat Food Product, and who eats this stuff?
I first noticed this on grocery store shelves in the early 90's. It's been around long before then, but that's when I first noticed it. Since then, I've seen it in grocery stores across the U.S., so this is not a rare find (you can usually find it just down from the tuna fish, or near the Vienna Sausages). The name just seemed so weird.
Weirder still is the ingredients list.
On the last can I looked at, #1 ingredient is "partially defatted pork fatty tissue." Huh?
A few down from there, is "Tripe by-products". Now that one's particularly puzzling, not to mention a bit disturbing. I always through tripe was a by-product. Of course, I still haven't figured out how to de-fat, even partially, fatty tissue, whether from pork or any other animal. Do you just put less in it or what?
Armour seems to be the biggest seller of this strange item, but it's made by other brands as well.
So what is this thing? It isn't cheap - by can size, it's about twice the price of tuna. It seems to be a delicacy of some sort, but I just couldn't imagine what sort. Is it some kind of weird religious thing, like Gefilte? Or is it good ingredient for cooking? The can gives no suggestions. Not even a picture on the can - one of those infamous "serving suggestions" showing how you can use a substance vaguely similar, but much better looking, than what's in the package. Or even little cartoons hinting at it's origins - maybe happy little partially defatted pigs frolicking with the parts of the cow stomach that doesn't make it into tripe.
Sometime, I think around 1996, after the gaming group I was hanging out with made fun of the strange snack choices I'd been bringing to share for the last couple of games, I finally had an excuse to pick up a can of this mysterious substance, and share it with the group. So, I brought my can of Potted Meat Food Product, and a box of Wheat Thins to put it on.
The first thing we noticed when opening the can was the smell. Now, you may think that something composed mainly of partially defatted pork fatty tissue, tripe reject, and other assorted meat, may not smell very good. You would not be wrong. But, I guarantee that you are underestimating the noxiousness, and the very strength of the bouquet from this can. If you ever open a can of this, I strongly suggest you do it outside.
Despite the smell, I spread a bit (it turns out it's some kind of brownish paste) onto a cracker, and took a bite. Perhaps, I reasoned, the taste would be better than the smell. After all, there must be something to this food - some reason you can buy it in grocery stores across the country. It can't be that bad, right? Well, let me assure you: It is.
Now, I don't say this lightly. I have eaten, in my life, some strange and, some might say disgusting things. I've had roast guinea pig. I've had ants dipped in chocolate. I've eaten strange unidentified fruits found in markets in small third-world villages. I've bitten into chicken that was so undercooked that blood ran out. I've had thin slices of beef that was so tough it took over a minute just to cut a slice small enough to try to chew. I've even eaten termites, live, right off of a tree. And nothing, I mean nothing I've ever eaten before or since lives in my memory as disgusting as this brownish substance apparently made of leftover meat bits.
So, yeah, I've brought it up from time to time. I've asked people if knew what it was used for. Most people I've brought it up to have never heard of it. If they had, it was just as a passing mystery they came across while searching for Vienna Sausages. But nobody I spoke to, on East coast or West, had any idea of what it was for or, indeed, could think of anyone they knew who'd ever tried it.
Fast forward to this morning.
As I mentioned, I again asked about this during our staff meeting at work. I am, by the way, currently living in the mid-west: St. Louis, Missouri, to be exact. I just brought it up once again to regale my co-workers with how disgusting the very idea is. And was shocked when one of them answered, "Oh, yeah, my mom used to buy that. She'd make sandwiches out of it." Even more shocking: "Yeah, mine, too." In answer to my stunned look of disbelief, they continued, "You just spread it between two pieces of bread. Like Nutella." "Yeah, my uncle brings it to the Fourth of July picnic every year. I never cared for it much," added a third. What is this? Are they all joking with me? Did I really go over a decade and a half wondering about this product only to find three people, the only three I've ever met who've admitted trying it, all in one day.
Well, no. Apparently, it is because I'm in the midwest. It's a common food here, if my co-workers are to be believed. Nearly as much, if not more so, than Spam. So, the mystery solved at last. Potted Meat Food Product is, apparently, the Midwest's answer to the infamous Vegemite of Australia.
To which I can reply, only: Yuck.
During a staff meeting at work, the topic came up, as it often seems to in my presence:
Just what the hell is Potted Meat Food Product, and who eats this stuff?
I first noticed this on grocery store shelves in the early 90's. It's been around long before then, but that's when I first noticed it. Since then, I've seen it in grocery stores across the U.S., so this is not a rare find (you can usually find it just down from the tuna fish, or near the Vienna Sausages). The name just seemed so weird.
Weirder still is the ingredients list.
On the last can I looked at, #1 ingredient is "partially defatted pork fatty tissue." Huh?
A few down from there, is "Tripe by-products". Now that one's particularly puzzling, not to mention a bit disturbing. I always through tripe was a by-product. Of course, I still haven't figured out how to de-fat, even partially, fatty tissue, whether from pork or any other animal. Do you just put less in it or what?
Armour seems to be the biggest seller of this strange item, but it's made by other brands as well.
So what is this thing? It isn't cheap - by can size, it's about twice the price of tuna. It seems to be a delicacy of some sort, but I just couldn't imagine what sort. Is it some kind of weird religious thing, like Gefilte? Or is it good ingredient for cooking? The can gives no suggestions. Not even a picture on the can - one of those infamous "serving suggestions" showing how you can use a substance vaguely similar, but much better looking, than what's in the package. Or even little cartoons hinting at it's origins - maybe happy little partially defatted pigs frolicking with the parts of the cow stomach that doesn't make it into tripe.
Sometime, I think around 1996, after the gaming group I was hanging out with made fun of the strange snack choices I'd been bringing to share for the last couple of games, I finally had an excuse to pick up a can of this mysterious substance, and share it with the group. So, I brought my can of Potted Meat Food Product, and a box of Wheat Thins to put it on.
The first thing we noticed when opening the can was the smell. Now, you may think that something composed mainly of partially defatted pork fatty tissue, tripe reject, and other assorted meat, may not smell very good. You would not be wrong. But, I guarantee that you are underestimating the noxiousness, and the very strength of the bouquet from this can. If you ever open a can of this, I strongly suggest you do it outside.
Despite the smell, I spread a bit (it turns out it's some kind of brownish paste) onto a cracker, and took a bite. Perhaps, I reasoned, the taste would be better than the smell. After all, there must be something to this food - some reason you can buy it in grocery stores across the country. It can't be that bad, right? Well, let me assure you: It is.
Now, I don't say this lightly. I have eaten, in my life, some strange and, some might say disgusting things. I've had roast guinea pig. I've had ants dipped in chocolate. I've eaten strange unidentified fruits found in markets in small third-world villages. I've bitten into chicken that was so undercooked that blood ran out. I've had thin slices of beef that was so tough it took over a minute just to cut a slice small enough to try to chew. I've even eaten termites, live, right off of a tree. And nothing, I mean nothing I've ever eaten before or since lives in my memory as disgusting as this brownish substance apparently made of leftover meat bits.
So, yeah, I've brought it up from time to time. I've asked people if knew what it was used for. Most people I've brought it up to have never heard of it. If they had, it was just as a passing mystery they came across while searching for Vienna Sausages. But nobody I spoke to, on East coast or West, had any idea of what it was for or, indeed, could think of anyone they knew who'd ever tried it.
Fast forward to this morning.
As I mentioned, I again asked about this during our staff meeting at work. I am, by the way, currently living in the mid-west: St. Louis, Missouri, to be exact. I just brought it up once again to regale my co-workers with how disgusting the very idea is. And was shocked when one of them answered, "Oh, yeah, my mom used to buy that. She'd make sandwiches out of it." Even more shocking: "Yeah, mine, too." In answer to my stunned look of disbelief, they continued, "You just spread it between two pieces of bread. Like Nutella." "Yeah, my uncle brings it to the Fourth of July picnic every year. I never cared for it much," added a third. What is this? Are they all joking with me? Did I really go over a decade and a half wondering about this product only to find three people, the only three I've ever met who've admitted trying it, all in one day.
Well, no. Apparently, it is because I'm in the midwest. It's a common food here, if my co-workers are to be believed. Nearly as much, if not more so, than Spam. So, the mystery solved at last. Potted Meat Food Product is, apparently, the Midwest's answer to the infamous Vegemite of Australia.
To which I can reply, only: Yuck.
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North Dakota
Date: 2005-08-16 05:09 am (UTC)Re: North Dakota
Date: 2005-08-16 06:10 am (UTC)Ah, but have you ever had Green Eggs and SPAM?
There used to be a restaurant in Portland (may still be, but I can't remember the name now. Many a breakfast I'd had there in the wee hours of the morning) that had it - along with "live crawdads" (which were, to my disappointment, served dead :), "Chili Mac", and other wholesome stuff.
The green part came from the use of Pesto in the mix, not food coloring. It was actually quite good.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 12:07 pm (UTC)Spam Mor
You should see the ads for "A PACKAGE OF SAUCE IN EVERY CAN OF WEINERS!!!"
no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 05:12 pm (UTC)This almost made me want to be a vegetarian again.
Points to you for brave investigative livejournalism.