In the UK we have something called Fray-Bentos pies and even among British people they’re subject to a lot of derision. This is a cheap meat pie that comes in a tin, and you take the lid off and bake it. Apparently it tastes worse than it sounds and it doesn’t sound nice. I think of it as a dinner for a profoundly depressed single working-class man in the 80s. I’m aware that in America you can, or could, get strange things in cans, such as bread, but I’m specifically after meals or substantial components of them with a similar vibe. Just things that no one who cares about themselves would put in their mouths if they could avoid it.
EDIT: sounds like Hungry Man TV dinners is the answer. What makes them ‘cursed’ to me is that they try to provide a complete traditional dinner. However, many of the other things mentioned exist in the UK and are not really what I would consider cursed, just cheap processed food for people low on time and money.
Comments
Vienna sausages, corn beef in a can and spam. But I love spam. I fry it up with some scrambled eggs and cheese on bread it’s delicious. But comes out the can looking like cat food
We would call them “TV dinners” in the US – microwave dinners for one. For what’s considered “broke college student” food there’s ramen and Cup of Soup.
Other than that, a similar comparison could be made to a lot of the lower end fast food.
Most things I see foreigners criticize the US for eating could be classified as food that only poor, depressed, young men would eat.
Banquet tv dinners. Potted meat.
Microwave meals like Hungry Man Dinner.
The old cliche would be a TV dinner… turkey or salisbury steak (basically a hamburger with brown gravy) with questionable mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables and a fruit pie, all set in a little aluminum bento box ready to be popped into the oven.
Today it’s probably “something random from Doordash.”
This isn’t quite an answer to your question, but we have microwaveable pot pies here. It’s American style pie crust with meat, gravy, and veggies inside. If I understand correcly from GBBO, it’s more liquidy on the inside than British meat pies… But you can microwave it. Definitely not limited to sad bachelors*. Mostly a staple of college students, but also very normal in family homes.
I believe I saw on a British TV show that Fray Bentos was the former leader of Cuba.
Kraft Mac and Cheese, Ramen, cold Chef Boyardee pasta straight from the can with hot sauce
Lots of microwaveable meals. There’s a brand called Hungry Man that exists just to appeal to this demographic. There’s also the convenience store roller dogs; they’re more for truckers and construction workers though there are a lot of similarities between the two groups.
Hot pockets 🤮
Frozen pizza, frozen burritos…
Patton Oswalt described a KFC Famous Bowl as a “sadness pile in a failure bowl.”
https://www.eater.com/2020/1/27/21078673/patton-oswalt-kfc-famous-bowl-bit-eater-bowl-bowl
Good question!
Unfortunately I don’t have an answer. When I think of bachelor living, food isn’t really a thing.
It’s more like, messy apartment, only owning one or two bath towels, and ordering door dash all the time.
Are we talking about things you or your friends may have actually consumed, or just things you hear about but have never known someone actually eating?
For the latter, there’s things like “cheesburger in a can”, or you can find canned whole turkeys/chickens for the most depressing Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner ever.
For just lame and lazy food, I’d expect a lot of frozen meals… and those aren’t awful. It’s pretty normal to keep a couple in your freezer if life happens and you don’t have time to cook. The main concern with the “depressed bachelor diet” is eating them every day, probably alongside copious soda or booze, and chips, candy, and other ‘dry goods’ junk food, never cooking (beyond microwaving some chicken nuggets) or eating anything fresh. Oh and ordering pizza 2+ days a week.
Batchelor Chow, now with flavor!
Any sort of microwavable “tv dinner”, or other frozen or canned prepared meal. The sort of stuff you lot are sure is the pride of our national cuisine.
I used to keep a can of wolf brand chili and a bag of fritos in my pantry. For emergencies.
I call them “mancheladas. Tortilla w/ cheese and salsa, microwaved for 1 minute.
Hormel canned hash
Hot Pockets
Top Ramen
TV Dinners
Fast food in general
Canned chili eaten straight from the can.
“Bachelor Chow”
https://youtu.be/5KXWzjl53wA?si=7mYkPP7t8FY–o2v
And the real-world version:
https://youtu.be/nowFI0WRpO0?si=-RnT5luCAxJ7McbM
Hot Pockets.
Microwave burritos.
One I saw recently at the store and cannot wrap my brain around: cooked ground beef in a can.
Have you seen Gaffigan’s hot pocket bit?
Pot pies, microwave Ramen, tv dinners, microwave burritos, all have the negligent single guy vibe in parts of the states but are comfort foods for a lot of the folks like me that grew up in poor areas. Potted meat and Vienna sausages with crackers are another perennial staple with that same dichotomy. The stereotypical bachelor food here is beer and pizza, but a lot of guys have jumped on the grilling bandwagon and the other end of that spectrum is the type of guy that grills 365 days a year with a $6000 grill out back of a rental property probably worth half what he spends on propane or charcoal a month. The food is great, but the culture is sketchy, lol.
Hungry man TV Dinners. Especially the 80s ones.
Big Azz Cheezburgers
Kraft mac n cheese. Bonus points if you cut up mystery dogs (store brand) into it. Extra bonus if you add cheap canned chili. Top with chips, and you’ll be the envy of small town *home chefs” across Mississippi.
I survived college eating Hormel Chili and Dinty Moore Beef Stew out of cans. Supplemented by Domino’s Pizza (usually a 2 large one topping deal). And, frozen dinners. Oh, can of sloppy Joe sauce mixed with mince (in the British vernacular) and spooned over 4 slices of bread. I’d add some shredded cheddar on top if I was feeling fancy.
When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, we ate something called Steak-Umms. They still sell it. It is probably one of the worst things that you can eat. I don’t think anything in it is steak whatsoever but it taste really good when you fry them up in all that grease.. you put them on some bread or a bun with cheese and lots of garlic salt and pepper, and some ketchup
Chef Boyardee
Eating a Hungry Man alone in a hotel room on Thanksgiving hits hard but not as hard as eating a can of Dinty Moore beef stew.
My old roommate would dump a can of Chunky Soup into a saucepan to heat it up, then eat the soup directly out of the saucepan. That has to qualify
Surprised nobody has mentioned pizza rolls, unless I missed it. They kept my brother alive for years.
I’m a little too focused on ‘bread in a can’. My first thought was that you were referring to Boston brown bread, but that stuff is delicious! Then it hit me that you’re probably referring to crescent roll dough that’s sold in a cardboard tube?
Bread in a can?
Can’t say I’ve ever seen or heard of this
I’ve never seen bread in a can in the US, so it’s probably not popular if we have it. Canned meats yes (spam, Vienna sausages, Hormel chili, etc). Hungry man TV dinners and frozen pizza. Packet ramen.
I would think a rotisserie chicken is a bachelor food, but not cursed.
I’m a bachelor and get an embarrassing number of weekly calories from frozen breakfast burritos. I eat them any time of day.
There’s a meme about how “boy dinner” is just a single guy eating a rotisserie chicken over the sink and like, I’ve been there.
They have these shelf stable dinners contains meat that are quite suspect. Like roast turkey with gravy but it’s not frozen just loaded with preservatives, or beef stew. The old school Swanson frozen dinners are/ were terrible, but there are better frozen options like healthy choice or Annie’s or purple carrot.
There are also things like canned spaghetti in sauce which are cheap and terrible. I think that would get my vote. Maybe manwhich sloppy Joe in a can?
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Hot Pockets
Frozen burritos are often 3 for $1. I love them though. Lots of people think they’re nasty.
Don’t forget Spam!
Hi, perpetual Bachelor here, and here are some “Cursed” Bachelor Meals I have eaten in my life:
An entire box of Rice-a-roni, not the microwavable cups, prepared by the microwave instructions on the box, eaten directly out of the bowl I prepared it in.
Green Bean Casserole served over instant mashed potatoes
An entire Little Caesar’s $5 Hot-n-Ready Pizza eaten straight from the box while playing video games in the dark
An entire grocery store rotisserie chicken eaten with my hands directly out of its container while watching TV in my underwear.
A McGangBang
Fried Rice made with cheap turkey lunchmeat on the verge of spoiling
A lot of bachelor food is a continuation of dormitory food from university. Others have named some great examples, but one that stands out in my mind is a frozen burrito. It takes very little effort to just make a burrito, and yet frozen burritos exist. They have a flavor that is thankfully difficult to reproduce yourself — one that I personally find unpleasant, but some people love.
For what it’s worth, I personally know very few men who can’t cook well. My very non-scientific sample of friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances would indicate it’s more likely for a woman to be unable or unwilling to cook than a man in America these days.
Dinty Moore stew in a can or canned chili or soup.
Hormel makes something called “potted meat food product” in ring top cans. IDK who eats it or why, but the stores stock it for someone.
The name alone makes it a dare to eat.
My boyfriends roommate used to make a meal I called Bachelor Chow. It was kraft mac n cheese, a can of tuna, and a can of peas mixed together in a pot on the stove. Looked and smelled like cat food, but I bet if you put it in a baking dish with some breadcrumbs on top, somebody in the Midwest would call it a casserole.
Hot Pockets
Spam
Frozen Pizza (especially any that are sold like 4 for $10)
As a native New Englander (Quincy represent) I’ll die on the hill that canned brown bread is not strange, it’s delicious.
https://bmbeans.com/products/?_product_category=brown-bread
Vienna sausage in a jar.
>I’m aware that in America you can, or could, get strange things in cans, such as bread
Brown Bread is proof of God’s love.
Slice it thin, fry it crispy in butter or bacon grease, then eat hot with baked beans and hot-dogs.
https://bmbeans.com/product/brown-bread-plain/
Not in a can. 5 lb bag of potatoes and a couple packs of hot dogs. I see this a lot with older lonely looking men in the market. Always the potatoes and dogs.
DINTY MOORE
Eating Dinty Moore Beef Stew cold, right out of the tin, with a can of Milwaukee’s Best.
TV Dinners used to occupy a similar spot all the way back to the… uh, honestly don’t know when they started. 1960s? Metal try with frozen turkey, potatoes, etc, throw it in the oven, and poof, vaguely edible meal.
Honestly they weren’t that terrible, but probably chock full of salt. They were better than a lot of the microwave food around these days.
As a cursed bachelor myself… there’s little sandwiches in like a pita pocket that you can just microwave and eat. They’re not great, but they’re also like 60 seconds from frozen to eating, so it’s handy to have a few about.
Frozen pizza is probably on the modern list. There’s like 3/4 of an aisle of frozen pizzas at the local grocery store, and they’re all mediocre-to-bad.
Hamburger Helper feels like an honorary member. Box with some pasta and a sauce powder. You cook hamburger, dump in some water, milk, pasta, and powder, simmer for 10 minutes.
There exists tuna helper as well but… ugh, gross.
Zatarins jambalaya too probably…. same basic plan — cut up and cook a sausage, dump in some rice/dried vegetable/spice thing overtop, add water, simmer for 20 minutes.
Frozen burritos
Besides TV dinners, I’d point to cheap and (usually) unhealthy foods we sell like Hot Pockets. They’re convenient, but nobody has a high opinion of them. They were a staple of my diet when I worked at Walmart because of their low cost and ease of cooking.
As a young fresh-out-of-college bachelor I ate at 7-11 way too much. Hot dogs, taquitos, personal pizzas, prewrapped turkey subs. Sometimes with the subs, I’d unwrap them after paying and use the 7-11 hot dog bar condiments (relish peppers onions mustard etc) to add to the sub.
It was gross. I got the worst food poisoning of my life to that point from a 7-11 taquito. They used to be like 2-for-3 or even 3-for-3. I got a few one night. The first one was fine but the second one was like very cold despite having been on the roller. I ate it anyway. I lost 5 pounds and never ate 7-11 food again.
Just cooking a poptart in the toaster and calling it dinner.
Dinty Moore canned beef stew
When I think of cursed bachelor foods, I think of the things I ate when I had my first apartment by myself in my early 20s. I was more interested in going out than cooking a meal for one at home.
Most of the meals I made at home for myself in those years were frozen, canned, or otherwised pre-packaged. The meal that stands out to me is Totino’s Party Pizzas. There was always a stack in my freezer, and at the grocery store they were 10 for $10.
I don’t think I’ve eaten one in probably 25 years. I don’t know if they still even make them.
Fray Bentos….there’s a name I haven’t heard in years….it is making me hungry!
Stake-ums and Hot Pockets
We have the same thing. They’re Banquet frozen pot pies. Used to also have a brand of them called Swanson’s.
I’d say Michelina brand but to be honest, for $1.00 to $1.50 they aren’t bad.
The correct answer is Gas station food.
Ain’t nobody eating Hungry Man dinners.
Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Hobo’s choice eats.
I would use the term sad food. I knew a guy who ate chunks of processed cheese with mayonnaise spread on it. He didn’t even make a sandwich.
Chicken pot pies, definitely
When I met my husband he basically only had Totinos pizzas in his freezer because roommates would steal anything else. We jokingly still call them “lonely bachelor pizzas”
Hormel canned tamales–with wrappers included! (They’re better than they sound, but they’re not great.)
I’m not a bachelor but I really like some of the Stouffers frozen meals and eat them on occasion, especially on days I go to the office.
When my UK brother was going through the ‘hollow legs’ bit of puberty it was not uncommon to walk into the kitchen to find him face deep in a Fray Bentos ‘family size’ pie. Tin still on the baking tray, baking tray on the hob, spoon in hand (knives and forks are too cultured for the adolescent male…) bent over it, protecting it, and just wolfing it down. It felt like a scene from an Attenborough documentary!
He’s now got a PhD and is very successful!
I’m going to go with these shelf-stable microwave things from Hormel. They cost very little, look like sadness and taste like death.
HORMEL® COMPLEATS® microwavable meals
Hot Pockets
La Choy canned chow mein.