Most of us think of February as Black History Month ...
Or the dog days of Winter …
Or give a heavy Valentine's Day sigh for our loved ones ...
But not Chuck Buell ...
HE'S come up with a completely different reason for celebrating.
Now usually I find Chuck’s ideas to be pretty uncanny …
But this time around I think you’ll agree that today’s salute is quite the opposite.
The Month of February is Officially "Canned Food Month!” ...
As it has been during every February since 1987 ...
Yet canned food has been around since the early 1800's.
In the late 1790's, Napoleon Bonaparte offered 12,000 Francs to anyone who could develop a method of preserving food for his army. A few years later, in 1810, tin cans were invented. ( Imagine ... French Cuisine as a “Canned Food!” )
Which raises my question, “Quelqu'un a un ouvre-boîte?” which translates to “Anybody Got a Can Opener?!”
A resounding, “NON!” echoed across the Land!
So how did the French Army open these precious treasures of Escargot and other French Delights while waiting around for the invention of the can opener? With a Hammer and a Chisel! Or their trusty Bayonets! ( which coincidentally, is a word that comes from the French, “baïonnette,” invented and first used by the French Army earlier in the late 1600s. ) The only drawback was puncturing and sawing off the top of a metal can left a dangerously jagged edge.
It wasn’t until fifty-plus years later, in 1855, that an English surgical instrument maker, Robert Yates, invented the first “tin-opener.”
As for the hand-crank can opener you and I most commonly use today, well, it wasn’t invented until 1925. But I digress.
Now then, why not acknowledge this Special Day by opening and enjoying perhaps the most famous Canned Food of all --- SPAM!
Or, for your daily Vegetable Serving, make like Popeye and open a can of Spinach just by squeezing the can!
Which I’ve often wondered about ...
How is it that Popeye is strong enough to squeeze open a can of spinach with his bare hands before he eats it to get his super strength?!
Meanwhile to commemorate today, feel free to play all your favorite music by that great late-1960s blues and rock band . . . Canned Heat!
While making a quick lunch cooked over “Sterno!”!
But circling back to the canned food SPAM brings to mind those lying "spam" messages that we constantly get and are allegedly wise enough to recognize and quickly delete, here is my Special "Chuck Buell 'Spam Lies' Minute Medley!"
CB
( which, when a couple times my high school jobs abruptly ended, stood for “Canned Boy!” )
And see, MY mind goes in a completely different direction when I think of canned foods ...
No ... NOT sardines!!!
(Yuk!!!)
I mean, seriously ...
What beats a hot bowl of baked beans, cooked over an open fire like we used to do back in the wild, wild west ...
