First of all, I would like to apologize for the worst pun ever since Sex and the City (not that I watched or liked that show, it's just that like every other guy who's seen it, I was flipping through the channels and saw boobs and then stopped flipping only to later realize I was watching Sex and the City). It was a very terrible pun, I know, but somehow, it seemed very appropriate as the first line of a blog post about a sandwich that comes in a can. If you're not aware of what the cleverly named Candwich is, then check it out here.
You know it's going to be good when their tag line is "new & innovative sandwich product for grab-and-go convenience." Mmmmm.... I'm having sandwich product for lunch today. That sounds appetizing as hell doesn't it? I think it would go very well with some tasty juice product and a bag of potato chips product. I think it's time that companies stopped using that clever trick of adding the word "product" to the end of descriptions of fake versions of real foods; it just sounds so gross. They should take a hint from the beef jerkey people, who (in a move I endorse) refrained from naming their product "dried and artificially flavored beef meat product."
By the way, I am trying to delay addressing the elephant in the room for a good reason: if i immediately attacked the fact that it's a sandwich that comes in a can, this blog post would be over by now. The fact of the matter is that I am not here to give a professional review or recommendation of this canned sandwich product, nor are you here because you are curious about its culinary merits. This is supposed to be fun! Let's milk the ridiculousness of this product for all it's worth.
Alright. Let's talk about the flavor selection. Currently the Candwich is not available (because they haven't been released yet) in "PB&J Grape" "PB&J Strawberry", and "BBQ Chicken." Hold on just one minute... one of these things is not like the others. The two PB&J flavors seem sensible enough. If you're a first time buyer of a sandwich that comes in a can, they seem like the two flavors that are least likely to make you go "I would never eat X from a can... this is gross." That's BBQ Chicken's job. In fact, if I could think of the one thing that I would specifically NOT eat from a can (let alone a can that also has bread and a toffee in it), it would be some sort of grilled meat. Seems like someone got a little ambitious... it's like one of the... engineers (or whatever you call people who design fake food) over at Mark One Foods was madly scribbling formulas on a piece of paper while saying (with a mad scientist voice):
"AHA! We will make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches... yes! And they will be strawberry and grape! And we'll also make barbecue chicken sandwiches! And then chicken parm heroes, and then once we've built our empire of fake canned sandwiches we can expand into canned breakfast and canned dinner! A Thanksgiving turkey dinner for four in a can! Filet mignon in a can! MUAHHAHAHA the world is MINE!!!!"
...while the rest of his coworkers grabbed both his legs and tried to pull him away from the drawing board yelling "that's crazy talk Jimmy! You're going to get yourself killed like this! We'll do BBQ Chicken but you have to promise to stop there!! It's for your own good!!"
And then they finally drew the line at BBQ chicken and called it a day.
Also, who was the brilliant artist who came up with the pictures on the cans? The PB&J sanwiches look decent enough (despite being in a hot dog bun), but the BBQ chicken sandwich looks like someone sliced a hot dog bun in half vertically then hollowed it out and filled it with sloppy joe meant for poor third world cats. If you're going to market a grilled chicken sandwich that comes served on a hot dog bun and is packaged in a can, at least try to make it look like it's not a grilled chicken sandwich that comes served on a hot dog bun and is packaged in a can.
Next, let's make fun of the target market. The website states that "Candwich is the perfect product for people on the go such as students, construction workers, soccer moms, and outdoor enthusiasts." We've already established that I'd rather eat a dead pelican found in the BP oil spill than the BBQ Chicken flavor sandwich, so I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist. Peanut butter and jelly seems like a sensible product to be marketed to students. Construction workers though? I like to imagine a bunch of construction workers from Brooklyn eating ridiculously large pastrami sandwiches while sitting in very dangerous locations. Now imagine Joe the construction worker opening his lunch box and taking out a pink or purple can (take your pick) and extracting from it a PB&J the size of a hot dog bun. Imagine him trying to act normal while all the other workers give him weird looks. "Whattttt....I was on-the-go guys... I needed something light..." I just laughed out loud a little bit (in my mind that construction worker also has a lisp). Also, I have to question their definition of "on-the-go" because when I think of construction workers and the things they build, they are usually not going anywhere. Unless they're Italian and they're performing renovations on the Leaning Tower of Pizza (yes that was intentional) in which case they might be on-the-go. I'm sorry if that joke was lame. My first pick was to say "unless they're from New Orleans, where everything is on the go" but then I realized that's a sore subject.
Oh come on!
Next, soccer moms. Calling someone a soccer mom is pretty much an insult nowadays. I have no idea how that slipped past their marketing department, but I imagine next they will sell brooms that are "perfect for housewives and Mexican cleaning ladies!" No soccer mom would buy this product simply out of their own fear of falling into the cliché of a mother who drives around in a minivan taking her kids to soccer practice so often that it becomes the only activity she does. And even if you were okay with that... it is an established fact that soccer moms' diets consist of chocolate chip cookies from Stop and Shop, Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, and Gatorade.
Next, outdoor enthusiasts. Right. Because when I think of people who love the outdoors and nature I think "Gee, we can sell them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that come in a can! Yeah, they're the perfect market for this!"
I'm also going to make fun of that little line on the website that says "easy store display - does not require refrigeration" by pointing out that none of the ingredients of the sandwich product (bread product, peanut butter product, and jelly product) require refrigeration either.
Okay. Now I'm going to make fun of the fact that it comes in a can. Are you ready??????
LOL IT COMES IN A CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!
So it's a sandwich product... that comes in a can. I guess the whole point is that you're supposed to be able to quickly eat it anytime you want, right? Simply whip out your can of sandwich and eat! "Quick and tasty, ready to eat" the website says. But there is a catch...
IT IS NOT QUICK AND TASTY, AND IT IS NOT READY TO EAT!!!!
Because once you open the can, and magically extract the plastic wrapped hot dog bun from the can, you will find that there is in fact no peanut butter OR jelly in it. Instead you will find two small plastic packets: one that contains a tiny amount of peanut butter, and one that contains a tiny amount of jelly.
THIS IS NOT A SANDWICH. THIS IS GROCERIES.
So now that you've finally been convinced to buy this ridiculous product (a sandwich product that comes in a fucking can) and you've put aside the fact that it may be gross and full of preservatives, and that your coworkers may laugh at you, you still have to sit down and make it yourself. Not cool. That's like if you went to buy a bag of potato chips, and you opened it to find one potatoe, a knife and a small kettle. I have no idea and do not want to know what the assembly instructions are for the BBQ Chicken Candwich.
What are you thinking Candwich? You're like the young underprivilleged urban child who shows talent from a very early age, is tutored by a supportive teacher, wins a scolarship from a prestigious university and has the chance to turn his life around, and then says fuck it all then decides to deal drugs instead. You've just turned the whole world upside down, defeated the odds, and convinced an otherwise reasonably sane person to buy a fucking sandwich that comes out of a fucking can... at least package something that's readily edible.
Instead of creating a weird product that some passers by may just buy once if their kids whine about it enough (which I assume is the most that this company could be going for), Mark One Foods has produced Candwich... a sandwich product whose Achilles' Heel is also it's only gimmick.
I have run out of things to say. And ironically all this talk of Candwich has made me hungry.
Mo out.
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