Tomatoes and beans aside, it’s easy to turn our noses up at canned and tinned foods – these days, it’s all about keeping things fresh, local and seasonal. Rewind a few decades, though, and people understood the value of a well-stocked store cupboard. Tinned foods, from fruits and vegetables to savoury pie fillings, were especially important during the Second World War, when a long shelf-life was crucial. Here’s our ranking of the best and most ubiquitous, from the 1940s into the 1960s.
Click or scroll through our gallery to discover 27 old-school canned foods that are sure to spark some serious nostalgia.
The idea of canned cheese brings to mind something ultra-processed and a bit dubious, but Cougar Cheese is actually surprisingly gourmet – it even won a gold medal at the 2006 World Cheese Awards. Developed by Washington State University in the 1940s as part of a research project, the cheese proved surprisingly delicious, with fans praising its sharp, dry taste and crumbly texture. When properly refrigerated, Cougar Gold is claimed to last indefinitely in the can.
These scarlet red balls bobbing around in a bowl of their own juices look a little uncanny in this 1951 British advert for Batchelors, but canned cherries do have a certain retro appeal – though we’re not sure we’d serve them at a dinner party. Used for cakes and pies, plus some of the era’s more unusual mayonnaise-packed ‘salads’, there’s something oddly appealing about the way they burst in your mouth.
Meatloaf, or liver loaf, is one of those dishes that conjures images of cosy family get-togethers or grandma’s home cooking. But E-Z Serve Liver Loaf changed that – at least the ‘cooking’ part – by stuffing the ground mix of corned beef, liver, pork and bacon into a loaf-shaped tin. This B vitamin–rich lunch meat became a wartime staple in the 1940s, as preferred pork and beef cuts were shipped overseas to feed the troops.
Not ground beef or lamb, but the kind of mincemeat British cooks have been using to fill pies at Christmas for centuries. A festive combination of dried fruit and citrus peel, blended with sugar and spices, it's generally available in jars these days – but in the middle of the 20th century, American brand None Such marketed a condensed, tinned version. This advert from 1965 suggests mixing it with condensed milk and candied fruits to make a delightfully retro fruitcake.
Most of us can probably agree that mushrooms taste best cooked from fresh. The spongy texture can quickly turn slippery and slimy if cooked for too long, which is exactly what happens when they’re tinned, too. Nevertheless, they were popular at one point, particularly during the Second World War and post-wartime. From 1958, this British ad for Chesswood canned mushrooms suggests tipping them straight from the can into a sizzling pan of fried eggs and bacon – sacrilege, in the eyes of English breakfast fans.
Yes, that’s bread in a tin. During the Second World War, factories began to produce ‘emergency bread’ that could be stockpiled as part of the war effort. The loaves were baked in hermetically sealed tins, apparently remaining edible for up to 10 years. They took pride of place in the centre of many a household's table.
Nothing says ‘good living’ like whipping out a can of corned beef hash for supper, does it? That’s according to this 1954 magazine ad, anyway. The ‘meal in a tin’ concept was hugely popular as convenience foods grew more prevalent, mainly due to more women joining the workplace and looking for simple, quick meals. And they don’t come much simpler than this.
Ambrosia Creamed Rice was a mainstay of many post-war cupboards – and the thought of it is sure to conjure childhood memories of steaming bowls of rice pudding, maybe with a spoonful of jam and a little extra cream stirred in (if you were lucky). Fancy indulging your nostalgia with an old-school dessert? Happily, you can: it’s still sold today, under the name 'rice pudding'.
How do you rebadge something that, essentially, is just cooked pork or beef in a can? Take a leaf out of Spam’s tin and add an ‘s’. Genius, yes. Delicious? We’re reserving judgement on that one – though this 1947 ad does a decent job of selling both products as summer salad essentials.
This chocolate malt drink is pure nostalgia. Toddy was first created in America in 1919 as a ‘drinkable food’ and milk alternative, but started being marketed to children and families in the 1940s under the tagline ‘Toddy, breakfast for the whole family’. These days it’s mainly sold in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela – but in the 1950s and 1960s it was huge in the USA, especially at drive-in cinemas, where it was advertised by the cartoon mascot ‘Rodeo Joe’.
With cubes of carrot, swede and green beans so tiny surely no human hand could have diced them, mixed with peas and sweetcorn, these ready-to-heat veggies were easy to serve but trickier to eat, as you basically had to chase them around your plate. Or you could encase the whole lot in aspic, of course, like in this retro 1948 recipe ad from Veg-All.
Remember how delicious this was drizzled on pancakes, on crumpets, on toast – on everything? Remember, also, how the lid would never fit properly back on the tin because so much sticky syrup was oozing around the edges? Basically, golden syrup was sheer joy for kids, but sheer irritation for adults.
You’ve heard of devilled eggs, but how about devilled ham? Amazingly, this meaty creation is one of the oldest canned foods – dating all the way back to 1868, when American food company Underwood first decided to preserve ground ham in a tin with various seasonings. And the slightly unnerving devil on the front? It holds the title of the oldest trademarked American logo still in use. This product had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was added to everything from scrambled eggs to mac 'n' cheese.
If Heinz’s cooked spaghetti was the perfect standby for suppers and last-minute dinner guests, Alphabetti Spaghetti was the bowl of tangy, tomatoey fun your grandparents always gave you for dinner, maybe with some buttered quarters of brown bread. The pasta letters were discontinued in 1990 after 60 years of delighting children (and often adults, too) – but they returned to shelves in 2005 due to popular demand.
Nowadays the sardines in your cupboard are more likely to be inside prettily decorated tins brought back from somewhere like Spain or Portugal. But 50 or so years ago, there would probably have been stacks of them, ready to be tipped out onto a slice of toast. The last US sardine cannery, in Maine, sadly closed in 2010 – but these little fish remain a good source of fatty acids.
There’s something strangely comforting about little parcels of meat- or cheese-filled pasta swimming in slightly sweet tomato sauce. Perhaps it's because it's exactly the type of after-school snack or dinner grandparents might serve, having heated the contents of a tin in a saucepan. Chef Boy-ar-dee, advertised here in the 1970s, was one of many easy-serve pasta meals available.
These chunky yellowish-green peas are basically peas that have not yet been ‘mushed’ to make mushy peas, that classic accompaniment for British fish and chips. They're mature peas that have been left to dry out naturally, and are also used to make wasabi peas – though we’ll always remember them as a soft, salty vegetable served for Sunday lunch, usually mixed in with some tinned carrots.
It's sort of pink, and kind of like salmon – but, somehow, tinned salmon is a completely different animal to the fresh or smoked stuff. Still, it was a store-cupboard staple back in the day (and still is, for many). You can easily use it to whip up a creamy pasta sauce or tasty salad, and you could even try using it as a filling for a ‘Sunday pie’, as suggested in this 1970s recipe booklet.
Fray Bentos launched a generation of convenience pie-eating when its tinned steak and kidney creations, topped with a puff pastry lid, hit supermarkets in 1961. But that wasn’t all they offered to the time-poor home ‘cook’. As this 1973 magazine page shows, the company also produced pie fillings – for those who wanted to make a little effort.
Pineapple upside-down cake, pineapple rings on top of thick slabs of gammon, pineapple chunks and cheese on sticks (to impress at parties)… There was seemingly no end to the uses of tinned pineapple, which hit peak popularity in the 1960s. And, nowadays, you can use it on pizza, too (if you’re so inclined).
Did you eat your hot dogs after heating them in a pan, simmering in their own brine, or cold, and straight from the can (shudder)? Chopped up in a potato salad, or just slapped in a skinny bun and smothered with ketchup and mustard? Or maybe served with a ‘Sack O’ Sauce’, as niftily demonstrated in this 1940s ad? Hot dog king Oscar Mayer’s wieners came with a sachet of barbecue sauce in the centre.
There was no need to faff around with pots of simmering water, make a sauce from scratch or even grate cheese with Heinz’s tins of cooked spaghetti. The skinny strands of pasta came already swimming in a seasoned tomato sauce with cheese. And, as demonstrated in this 1941 page from National Home Monthly, it could be used for more substantial casseroles and pasta bakes – or even to fill pies.
Never forget dessert again! Simply keep a tin of these syrupy beauties in your cupboard, and you'll have an instant post-dinner treat. Used in a cobbler – like in this 1948 ad – or stewed on the stove or in the oven and served with a dollop of evaporated milk, cream or ice-cream, a can of peaches was a reliable suppertime saviour in the 1950s and 1960s.
There was something a little terrifying about the Green Giant – maybe his size, the fact he could lift enormous ears of corn with ease – or perhaps his deep, guttural ‘ho, ho, ho’. But his tins of corn were (and still are) perfectly tender and delicious.
Condensed or evaporated milk – milk that has been evaporated to thicken it, then sweetened – was practically a wartime hero. Its high fat, protein and sugar content made it perfect for field rations during the US Civil War and the two World Wars, and it’s also a key ingredient in banoffee and Key lime pies. It’s having a bit of a comeback, mainly for desserts that call for a creamy caramel; heating it creates a sweet, nutty sauce like dulce de leche.
There was no point in installing a spam filter back when this canned cooked pork was at the height of it popularity. The stuff was everywhere, from breakfast tables to spaghetti dinners. Spam was invented in 1937, and became especially prevalent in frugal kitchens during the Second World War.
There were (and still are) many varieties of tinned soup, but Campbell’s was forever immortalised by Andy Warhol – not to mention your grandparents’ favourite pasta and cream of mushroom soup casserole, often topped with crisps. There’s still something comforting and cockle-warming about it, from the noise it makes as it slops out of the tin (usually in one concentrated chunk) to the nostalgic taste.
Now discover the old-school foods we think should come back in style
Last updated by Natasha Lovell-Smith.