Don’t donate Frey bentos pies to food banks

[isitworthit124]

They need a special can opener to get into them

I really only want the chicken curry one but I know my shop won't have that, it'll be steak & kidney, steak or chicken & gravy, which will have to do.

Am really tempted to chuck it in a crusty roll re: a previous poster, with lashings of butter so I may as well have a bottle of wine the night before to really appreciate the full dirtiness 😂

Thanks. I try to give things that cook quickly or don't need cooking, and I thought chickpeas were cheap-ish and versatile, compared with say tinned sweetcorn.
I don't eat biscuits so hadn't thought of donating them.
I have donated sweets and mince pies but it was near Christmas.

I love a good chick pea. It's just people who only give worthy things and they eat other things. Mince pies are lovely! I make a shit ton for the homeless shelter and they get snapped up.

Nah they'll be fine in 2075! I'd have a go now.

Can the pies be eaten cold? Are they pre-cooked?

No

Is there any canned meat that’s not terribly processed?

Well all ham is processed but I have to say tinned ham - to my surprise - doesn't taste at all processed.

Me too.

By “special can opener” do you in fact mean just “a can opener”?

There is canned meat that contains actual meat. People having very little in terms of food is an even better reason to give them donations of actual nutritional content.

I was an embarrassingly advanced age before I discovered where the name Fray Bentos came from.

I just always assumed it was a made-up fancy-sounding brand name; didn't know it was an actual city, where they originally made/processed the products!

WTF? I was today years old.

There is no need for the overwhelming number of replies. I won’t be responding to any questions directed at me and can’t be bothered with this thread any more

In 1985 I was backpacking around Europe and decided I didn’t need to pack a tin opener, everything was ring pull.
I had an unopened mini tin of tuna in my luggage for weeks!
So they’ve been going out of style for at least 40 years.

Mine is now in the “single use tools” basket in the kitchen as I’ve used it once in 4 years to open pineapple slices for an upside down cake.

Yes this is often my mentality when I post on large public internet forums. Never understand why people reply…

My next holiday location. Worth it just for the Facebook pictures of me with the sign.

I manage a food bank. Apologies if repeating, have only read first and last pages.

1. ASK THE FOOD BANK WHAT THEY NEED - it's no good my telling you that my client base is Rastafari following an Ital diet and we're swimming in can openers if you're in north Wales.
2. We'd love donations of tin openers (we get them from the charity shop, who don't want them) - but again, ask the one nearest you for what they need.
3. Some people like/look forward to/tolerate a Fray Bentos pie, or Spam, or instant noodles, or whatever else, some don't.
4. I'd never buy something like Fray Bentos if it was our charity money we were spending; in that kind of range I'd be looking at eggs, tinned soups, tinned mackerel or sardines.
5. We do store and distribute a lot of fresh produce; it isn't a universal no.

I think it's probably Gen Z who don't know what a can opener is, isn't it? Most things seemed to need a can opener when I grew up and I am a millennial. I was surprised recently to think that I hadn't used one for ages, and then realising that the only cans I need a can opener for are tinned ravioli. I have no idea when that shift happened because a can opener was definitely a normal/essential thing when I moved out of home.

Mind you I do think modern ones are utter rubbish, my mum has had one can opener since before I can even remember, she never washes it, the cogs are all gunked up with decades of god knows what (cat food probably) and I remember her using it daily and it still works. I've bought about five in my adult life because they break or lose grip and just start spinning loosely round and don't work properly. I think it's because her old one is all stainless steel and the ones I've had have plastic parts, which wear out. The last one I bought is one of those weird ones that does around the edge instead of inside the top so perhaps that's what people mean. But no you can't really turn it around because it doesn't work that way.

However I did cause great hilarity among my Gen X and older friends on FB when I posted this picture wondering if other people were aware of what it was, because I was not. (I came across it in an episode of Back In Time For Dinner, which was a brilliant series - the Gen X mum and Gen Z daughter were baffled by this, but her husband knew how to use it.)

There's "no need" for MN at all.

Are you going to tell us where you got the idea that "special" openers were needed?

I think tinned food was invented several decades before the tin opener.

I thought it was a person

Why tf did you start it and not explain what you meant then?

I think it's gen Alpha , my millennial and gen z kids are fine with them, the Alpha looks at it like it's some alien thing

We bought one out of desperation for backup when yet another modern can opener broke. Ours is made of entirely stainless steel though so it will live forever. Unless we accidentally throw it away like we did our original one 😂

The lid looks fab-always my fave bit!