Tasty versions of horrible foods

[Stephen Tashiro]

There are many types of food that are horrible in their supermarket versions, such as Pop Tarts, Spam, corned beef hash, "pressed" sandwich meats etc. I wonder if there exist tasty versions of these foods or appetizing ways to prepare them.

For example, one can make delicious fruit tarts, but can anyone make a nice pastry from the dry tasting filling in Pop Tarts?

Was there once a version of corned beef hash that people actually liked?

I've seen many recipes for preparing Spam, but none that would make me prefer it to hamburger.

Luncheon meats that are simply "sliced" make a good sandwich, but the ones that are "chopped, pressed and sliced" are disgusting. Nowadays you find this done to chicken and turkey as well as the traditional baloney.

[Frank Guerin]

Road kill and the microwave. Still not as good as dupster diving. And people wonder why I'm still single.

[Bill Cunningham]

Luncheon meats that are simply "sliced" make a good sandwich, but the ones that are "chopped, pressed and sliced" are disgusting. Nowadays you find this done to chicken and turkey as well as the traditional baloney.

They are chopped, pressed, and sliced for a reason. If you seen what they were actually chopped, pressed and sliced, 'from' you might become a Vegan! (Old Indian word for lousy hunter) Hail the Tofudibeast

[Belinda Barfield]

They are chopped, pressed, and sliced for a reason. If you seen what they were actually chopped, pressed and sliced, 'from' you might become a Vegan! (Old Indian word for lousy hunter) Hail the Tofudibeast

Come on Bill, what you got against chicken lips and pig hoof jam? Once diced and sliced you can barely tell it's not the real thing!

[John Coloccia]

Real corned beef hash is good. It's like comparing Hormel chili to my chili. It's just not in the same league. Spam can be grilled up on the BBQ. It doesn't actually taste any better, but it does get crispy, and anything crispy is better.

[Stephen Tashiro]

Real corned beef hash is good.

I can imagine a tasty hash made with beef and potatoes and cooked the normal way, but is the real corned beef hash you mention made with real corned beef? - brine cured?

As to grits, many Southern dishes are simply an excuse to eat salt and margarine, a combination that I enjoy. For this purpose, I enjoy grits more than hash browns.

[Marty Paulus]

I used to think that of grits as well Ken. That is before a I was shown how to properly season them. Butter and sugar! How can anything taste bad with butter and sugar on/in it? Of course my wife thinks I am nuts for liking grits but that is a whole 'nuther discussion on my mental status.....

[Larry Bratton]

I used to think that of grits as well Ken. That is before a I was shown how to properly season them. Butter and sugar! How can anything taste bad with butter and sugar on/in it? Of course my wife thinks I am nuts for liking grits but that is a whole 'nuther discussion on my mental status.....

Butter and Sugar!!!! Are u nuts? I have grits almost everyday with nothing except some margarine on them. Love em for breakfast with my eggs. If you have never had Shrimp and Grits, you don't know what you are missing. Now that is a dish fit for anyone, made from the lowly grits.

[Rick Markham]

They are chopped, pressed, and sliced for a reason. :

As my father used to say "That's the stuff they sweep up off the floor after making everything else"

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Boiled okra.

I spent 8 years in the U.S. Navy.......most of it in the deep South.......Brunswick, GA, Meridian, MS, Kingsville, TX and Charleston, SC.

They have this prerecorded message they play if you turn down the local version of boiled okra......"You haven't eaten my boiled okra.......ya'll should try it.......Ima sure you like it...." So trying to be nice you take some.

I remember being in kindergarten and we had wooden desk that had a hole in the top .....a little glass container in that hole with a lid that had a brush in it. Inside that jar was glue and it looked and tasted just like boiled okra. I'm sure boiled okra is made from that glue and visa versa.

Fried okra is a different matter.


grits.....now there is another one. They play another version of that recording again....."Try my grits. Ima sure you will like it." IMHO....there is nothing known to mankind that will make grits tasty.....NOTHING KNOWN TO MANKIND.

[Belinda Barfield]

Boiled okra.

I spent 8 years in the U.S. Navy.......most of it in the deep South.......Brunswick, GA, Meridian, MS, Kingsville, TX and Charleston, SC.

They have this prerecorded message they play if you turn down the local version of boiled okra......"You haven't eaten my boiled okra.......ya'll should try it.......Ima sure you like it...." So trying to be nice you take some.

I remember being in kindergarten and we had wooden desk that had a hole in the top .....a little glass container in that hole with a lid that had a brush in it. Inside that jar was glue and it looked and tasted just like boiled okra. I'm sure boiled okra is made from that glue and visa versa.

Fried okra is a different matter.


grits.....now there is another one. They play another version of that recording again....."Try my grits. Ima sure you will like it." IMHO....there is nothing known to mankind that will make grits tasty.....NOTHING KNOWN TO MANKIND.

Boiled okra - BLECH!!!!

Cheese + grits - TASTY!
Shrimp & Grits - TASTY!

[Brian Elfert]

Personally, I like Pop-Tarts and I actually don't mind pressed turkey and the like. When I do eat Pop-Tarts I don't warm them up at all.

[george wilson]

The Spam mention reminds me of a WWII story: The officers from an Aussie group who never got anything to eat but corned beef(bully beef to them) were invited to dinner with American officers. The Americans apologized for the Spam,but the Aussies loved it,having not had it before. Thereafter,a trade of canned corned beef for Spam was arranged.

I'll tell you what I think is bad: Quaker packaged red eye gravy flavored grits!!!! It ISN'T the real thing!!! Not that I am crazy about salt cured ham either,but the grits taste rancid to me.

[Curt Harms]

George's thread reminds me of something sorely lacking in the Northern larder--Country Ham!!!! I love the stuff for breakfast with eggs and haven't been where it's sold for quite a while. At least some Cracker Barrels will sell it by the pound so I may have to stop in to one of those. When I was growing up I had a distant relative that had a "locker plant". Does that ring a bell with anyone? This was before home freezers were common. It was a butcher shop with a freezer room and a bunch of big drawers in it. You'd have the owner process a critter and store it in one or more of these lockers. Then you brought it home a few pieces at a time to store in the refrigerator/freezer. He processed ham that tasted like country ham although it had to be frozen and the process was not as long as real country ham.

[Belinda Barfield]

You non Southerners got no grits . . . you got no country ham . . . you got no sweet tea . . . how DO you survive?

Do y'all have "Pig Pickins" or "Pasture Parties"? If so that would at least make life almost tolerable. Oh, and 'maters . . . do y'all get good fresh 'maters?