I wanted to drop a line to let everyone know that I’ve been swamped updating our old posts - as we’ve mentioned recently, we updated our primary file management software about a month or so ago and the number of formatting problems that the new software has caused has been staggering. Unfortunately it’s only been over the course of the past week that we became aware of most of them, as for some reason neither my computer nor Pyrophage’s have been exhibiting many of the formatting problems.
So we are currently digging through the past year’s worth of posts and fixing things as fast as our little fingers can fly, but if you happen to encounter anything that you look at and say to yourself, “there’s no way they meant for it to look like that,” please post a comment or email us (you can find our contact information under the ‘Contact Us’ link to your left). We will be making any material brought to our attention in such a fashion our highest priority.
Well, it’s time for a brief look at some other tasty, salty meat snacks.
We all know about Spam, both online and offline. But what about it’s bastard cousin Treet? While Spam is a Hormel product, Treet is brought to us by Armour, famous for their hot dogs, or at least their hot dog jingle. Treet is pretty much cheap Spam, if you can get your mind around that. The key difference being that Treet uses chicken where Spam uses ham. In my own opinion I have also felt that Treet had a bit coarser grind to it than Spam. But according to wikipedia I am exactly backwards on that sentiment. Maybe it’s the fact I haven’t consumed Treet in quite some time. But I remember encountering little chunks of stuff that could be clearly recognized as part of an animal, and that’s not always a good thing.
Treet also always struck me as being slightly saltier than Spam. And I remember a fair amount more of aspic in Treet than Spam. However, this may have changed in recent years, as I remember Spam always having a generous helping of jelly in it whenever I had the stuff as a youth. Could it be that our preserved meats are becoming healthier? I would almost agree with that. And then I remember my one brush with the dread Potted Meat Food Product.
Both Hormel and Armour make a variant of Potted Meat, and it goes by the same name from both companies. I guess when the name is just a bland description of a worrying food it’s difficult to come up with a copyright infringement case.
Potted meat is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the tinned meat industry. And I mean that both in a metaphorical and literal sense. Just check out these ingredients from the Hormel version:
Ingredients: Beef Tripe, Mechanically Separated Chicken, Beef Hearts, Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue, Meat Broth, Vinegar, Salt, Flavoring, Sugar, Sodium Nitrite.
Partially Defatted Cooked Beef Fatty Tissue has to be something scraped out of the bottom of the cooker, doesn’t it?
What would prompt someone to eat this stuff? I had some once out of sheer curiosity. It only comes in a 3 oz can and I could only stomach about a quarter of it. And I actually like Spam, but I just couldn’t plow through this bizarre meat paste.
If any of you are big Potted meat fans drop us a line and tell me what I’m missing out on. Maybe Potted meat, like cream of mushroom soup, is better as a starter for something else instead of straight out of the can. If you have any ideas let us know and we’ll give you a post.
Tune in tomorrow where, with luck, we’ll have some recipes, or perhaps a completely tinned meat free day.
