Nabeel Chollampat: Food you shouldn’t put in a can

Recently, I came across a picture of a whole chicken in a can. Here is a picture of a whole chicken in a can:

I also recently saw a picture of a whole cheeseburger in a can. Here is a picture of a whole cheeseburger in a can:

This is, objectively, fucking disgusting.

Here is a list of foods that I don’t think you should put in a can:

1. A whole chicken. This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
2. A cheeseburger. Again, I’d say you got the idea from the picture here.
3. A whole pizza. Just sticking with the general trend here. I don’t think you would need to can a pizza. You can get them frozen.
4. A slice of pizza. You could probably fit a slice of pizza into a can, but I don’t think it would taste very good.
5. Steak. The idea here is admirable — cooking a steak is no easy task — but, again, I’d like to think a canned steak would not be great to eat.
6. A whole turkey. After I saw a whole canned chicken, I thought, “What about a whole canned turkey?” Then I thought, “No.”
7. Tacos. I love tacos, but I don’t think I would love tacos from a can.
8. A burrito. Probably not this either.
9. A quesadilla. I’d be willing to entertain arguments here, but, again. I’d most likely still come down on the side of “No.”
10. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Theoretically, this one probably makes the most sense, but hear me out — do we really want this? Is this really what we were put on this planet for? Has the great human experiment been building towards this, of all things?
11. Tuna. I know, I know. This is a hot take. Tuna is the most ubiquitous of The Canned Foods. But I’d like to think of the great tuna as, at the very least, deserving of a more noble food delivery method. Should we not respect the great aquatic beasts from whose flesh we feast in an aurally unappetizing slop of mayo and mustard and celery, slapped on a piece of toast and served to indifferent retirees in an assisted living center? Bluefin tuna at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market has been sold for over $600,000 (!) in years past; a can of watery, squishy Chicken of the Sea is no way to pay our collective respects to the honorable tuna.
12. Peaches. We don’t have to talk about this one. It hurts too much.
13. Tom yum goong. A great soup, but I think if we put this in a can, it would not be a great soup.
14. Borscht. I had to Google what this was, but when I saw it, I knew it shouldn’t be in a can.
15. Ajarian khachapuri. I made this once, and it was really good. I would not recommend buying this from a can.
16. Two crisp graham crackers, filled to the brim with melted Hershey’s chocolate that reminds you of your aunt and a sticky-sweet marshmallow, burnt a bit on the edges, roasted by the crackling fire of a summer gone too soon. The can would ruin the whole effect.
17. Peanuts.
18. My mother’s biryani — a family recipe developed by my great-great-great grandmother, who handed it down to my great-great-grandmother, who handed it down to my great-grandmother, who handed it down to my grandmother, who handed it down to her daughter (my mother), who will hand it down to her daughter (my sister), and who will thus continue the unbroken chain of familial love that spans generations, continents, cultures and languages, yet persists as a wholly unchanged artifact of an era I never knew but a family that is mine all the same, connected by blood, yes, but also by a fiercely protective love of the specific blend of cardamom, cumin, turmeric and garam masala that somehow manages to infuse rice — that humble South Indian staple — with a feeling of one thing, above all else: Home. This would SUCK from a can.
19. A whole chicken. Seriously, look at that picture again.