Why Canned Corn Beef Always Comes With A Key

Packed neatly in its rectangular can, corned beef is a flavorsome and versatile meat you can use in many dishes without fuss. But you may have wondered why most cans come with a key attached? Well, it's actually the key, ahem, to the efficiency of this can.

Locked onto the side of the tin, the key is used to open cans of corned beef — no external can opener is needed because it's included on the packaging itself. Simply lift the little metal clip to remove the key, flip the key around, pop it over that clip, and then twist the key slowly to gradually wind up a strip of metal that cuts off the base of the can, creating a type of lid that you can pop open. Easy-peasy (usually). With a little shake, your canned corn beef should slide out in one chunk, allowing you to cut it into neat slices for integration into a dish.

Don't you just love this convenience? Ready-cooked and ready-to-go. But the corned beef can and its little key is actually more about survival than convenience. This history of canned corn beef has military origins dating back to 1795, a few years after the outbreak of the French Revolution. French troops weren't getting enough food to sustain them, with perishable foods often spoiling before they even reached the army. So the government put out a challenge: Anyone who could invent a way to safely and easily get food to the army — without it spoiling — would win 12,000 francs. 

Nicolas Appert, a French chef and distiller took up the challenge and spent 14 years researching and developing a solution. He discovered that perishables like fruit, jam, soup, and even stews could be preserved by sealing them in a bottle and then covering them with boiling water for five hours. It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't help the troops because the glass was too fragile and kept on breaking.

The British upgraded Appert's method in 1810, using metal containers covered with tin plating to prevent rust. Three years later, the British firm Donkin and Hall was able to supply enough canned meat to sustain the Royal Navy. However, these cans were heavy and came without an easy way to open them. People apparently used military weapons just to get the food out of the cans. 

But as always happens with inventions, development, and progress, people wanted to make it better and easier to use — and bring versatile corned beef cans from the battlefield into the kitchen. So in 1866 Americans Arthur A. Libby and William J. Wilson revealed the tapered can that we're familiar with today, along with its little key opener. And it's been this way ever since, with modifications made to the key along the way. It is possible today to buy canned corned beef in a round tin with a ring pull or needing a can-opener to get inside instead of the key. But customers enjoy the nostalgia of the tapered tin with the key, which remains popular. However, next time you buy one, do read our article on mistakes often made with canned corned beef before opening.