5 Vintage Canned Foods No One Remembers Anymore

Thanks to innovations from France in the late 1700s and the United States in the mid 1800s, the process of canning rose to prominence as a revolutionary new way to make food last longer. With so many different canned foods to stock in your pantry, modern day mealtime is now considerably more convenient than ever before. The variety of canned foods spans the gamut from fruits and vegetables to nuts, beans, meats, and even cheeses.

It's important to look back at the rich history of food preservation to appreciate how far culinary culture has come in such a short time. Along with many amazing inventions, several vintage canned foods have fallen by the wayside. Some of the most unique ones might even still stock shelves while others have bitten the proverbial dust. Between Franco-American Macaroni with Cheese Sauce, Monarch Alaska King Crab, Peanut Patch Boiled Peanuts, Ambrosia Rice Pudding, and Alphabetti Spaghetti, these forgotten canned foods are due recognition for their place in food history.

Looking back at vintage foods, there are plenty of hits and just as many misses. Among indelible memories of awkward-shaped Jell-O salad molds filled with questionable ingredients and some foods that it seems simply weren't meant to be canned, food hasn't always been pretty. There are many canned foods that folks still remember fondly along with cult favorites that disappeared long ago yet still have fans clamoring. Beloved, maligned, and everything in between, take a moment to remember these vintage canned foods.

For those who love a simple mac and cheese recipe, a can of Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese was just the thing to satisfy your appetite. A popular product that existed from the mid 1950s until the early 2000s, this canned mac and cheese boasted a barrage of thick spaghetti-like noodles in a colorful and viscous cheese sauce. Per a 1959 commercial, this canned pasta was made with cheddar cheese, cream, and butter. The taste still lingers in the minds of devoted followers, with some even going so far as creating Facebook fan groups and Change.org petitions to profess their love of the canned delight and demand its return to shelves.

Lost to time and considerably more of a cult favorite than in its heyday, Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese should not be forgotten. In fact, there have been plenty of attempts at copycat recipes that insist on the use of overcooked bucatini pasta, condensed cheddar cheese soup, milk, and butter to suffice as a suitable replica of this canned favorite. With other brands selling cans of mac and cheese, it's worth wondering if the absence of Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese is what has made the hearts of those who love it most grow fonder over time.

Monarch Alaska King Crab was a hefty undertaking that definitely exceeded expectations and defied convention. Prominent during the 1930s, this canned crab was labeled as "fancy" and surprisingly packed quite a bit of quality meat into the tiny space of a can not much bigger than those used for tuna fish. Although there are still plenty of canned crab brands available today, Monarch is no longer among them, perhaps because of the difficulty of sourcing such seafood at the time. 

The impressive nature of Monarch Alaska King Crab is deserving of its royal title and, what's more, provides a great basis of what to look for when choosing the best canned crab meat. Unfussy and brimming with top notch seafood, this vintage canned crab has a place among the greats. With the understanding that quality often comes at a price, Monarch Alaska King Crab set the bar high and then yielded the way for other brands to try pinching this idea. 

Boiled peanuts are a staple snack of the U.S. South made through a fairly simple process. Taking raw or green peanuts and boiling them unshelled in salt water for several hours until they soften, the boiling yields a supple outer shell that's easily opened to reveal delicately boiled nuts inside. This process was streamlined and simplified with the creation of Peanut Patch Boiled Peanuts, a canned version of the treat that you can easily pop open and enjoy.

Under the umbrella of family-owned company McCall Farms, which has been in business since 1954, Peanut Patch Boiled Peanuts are still available and thriving to this day. Though not many foodies outside of the South are aware of the wonder that is the boiled peanut, this delectable vintage canned food can still be a modern day nosh anytime of year. With several different flavors including Original, Cajun, Hot & Spicy, and Spicy Buffalo, it's definitely a great idea to explore Southern snacking with a can of Peanut Patch Boiled Peanuts.

A darling of the dessert world, Ambrosia Rice Pudding came about following the founding of the Ambrosia Diary in Devon in 1917. In fact, this brand is particularly noteworthy, as Ambrosia was the first company to contain rice pudding using cans around 1936. In even more interesting food history, the canned rice pudding was actually sent as part of Red Cross parcels to British prisoners of war. The rice pudding is characterized by a creamy consistency and rich flavor with a fair amount of sweetness. It can be served hot or cold and enhanced with jam or brown sugar to taste.

Thankfully, time has been good to Ambrosia, which celebrated 100 years of business in 2017. It is still active today, selling cans of the British confection far and wide. While rice pudding isn't necessarily the most glamorous of desserts, there is, nonetheless, and certain comfort-food feeling to this vintage canned food that's worth remembering and enjoying.

Though it's gone by a few different names, like alphabet pasta, alphabet soup has been around longer than you might expect. Though there are still plenty of different iterations of the alphabet-shapes in a robust sauce, Alphabetti Spaghetti holds a special place in the echelons of food history, mostly because it's just so fun to say out loud. Still sold by Heinz in the U.K., this vintage canned food was discontinued in 1990 but reintroduced again around 2005. It's hard to imagine who could forget a canned pasta that so simply spelled out a delicious meal in every alpha-bite?

With modern reissues and grown-up takes on the classic preparation methods, this canned food clearly still has relevance and resonance with those who loved it so. Alphabet-shaped pasta swimming in sauce goes to show that fun-shaped pasta just tastes better than plain and, whether it's a trick of the mind or the mere value of nostalgic indulgence, Alphabetti Spaghetti is one canned food that will always warm the heart.