# Deviled Ham? It's CAT FOOD! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 4, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723 "2004-06-04T22:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/21 "2004-06-05T02:07:19Z")
> [@Eats\_Crayons](#): > > My ex, Sniffs\_Markers, has been known to eat pâté… Let me guess _Paris Pâté_ ? I agree the stuff is foul. Unfit for mammal consumption in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/22 "2004-06-05T02:37:33Z")
How can anyone diss a product with [an illustrious history like this?](http://www.underwoodspreads.com/underwd_history.html) By the way, their Chicken Spread is also great trail food, as long as you don’t read the list of ingredients too closely. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/23 "2004-06-05T02:44:41Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > How can anyone diss a product with [an illustrious history like this?](http://www.underwoodspreads.com/underwd_history.html) I direct you to [this 1920 ad](http://www.adclassix.com/ads/20underwood.htm), which not only suggests we eat _Deviled Tongue_ (!), but shows their earlier logo, a much more menacing–nay, terrifying!–devil leaping out at us, Nosferatu-like, veritably forcing his forked devil tongue down our throats! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/24 "2004-06-05T02:57:23Z")
First time I tried water-packed tuna, I thought the cannery had mislabled a can of cat food. ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/25 "2004-06-05T03:11:58Z")
Ok, that 1920s version is a little scary. And no way am I eating anyone’s tongue. Blech. Which was the same reaction I had to a recipe the rest of my family was and is fond of-deviled muffin puffs. Basically and english muffin spread with deviled ham, topped with some fluffy whipped egg concoction and baked. I think it’s the fluffy egg part that gets to me. I’m not sure if my cats would eat deviled ham but one of them loves nachos. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/26 "2004-06-05T03:24:25Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I direct you to [this 1920 ad](http://www.adclassix.com/ads/20underwood.htm), which not only suggests we eat _Deviled Tongue_ (!), but shows their earlier logo, a much more menacing–nay, terrifying!–devil leaping out at us, Nosferatu-like, veritably forcing his forked devil tongue down our throats! Kinky. I like it. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/27 "2004-06-05T03:45:45Z")
> [@detop](#): > > Let me guess _Paris Pâté_ ? I agree the stuff is foul. Unfit for mammal consumption in my book. 😕 No I was referring to the Fancy Stuff, she got at Fancy Places that also carry the Fancy Cheeses that are moldy and look like white goo. E.g./ Foie gras looks like cat food, smells like cat food… Nuh-uh! Crayons no eat! (I have tried, but it set off the “eek! cat food!” alarms in my consciousness, so I’ve never been able to without gagging.) ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/28 "2004-06-05T04:36:17Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I direct you to [this 1920 ad](http://www.adclassix.com/ads/20underwood.htm), which not only suggests we eat _Deviled Tongue_ (!), but shows their earlier logo, a much more menacing–nay, terrifying!–devil leaping out at us, Nosferatu-like, veritably forcing his forked devil tongue down our throats! Ah, it’s 1920’s style devil ads. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/29 "2004-06-05T04:52:31Z")
Hey! You got devil in my ham! Well you got ham on my devil! ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/30 "2004-06-05T06:10:41Z")
Deviled ham ain’t too bad, but potted meat–that’s just false advertising. I couldn’t find a trace of pot in it. What? ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/31 "2004-06-05T13:48:32Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > I direct you to [this 1920 ad](http://www.adclassix.com/ads/20underwood.htm), which not only suggests we eat _Deviled Tongue_ (!), but shows their earlier logo, a much more menacing–nay, terrifying!–devil leaping out at us, Nosferatu-like, veritably forcing his forked devil tongue down our throats! Egad, they were eating the crap way back in the ‘20s - a lot earlier than I supposed. And I’m not fooled by the ad’s attempt to make it look like high class eatin’. “After tennis”, indeed! Ralph. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/32 "2004-06-05T13:56:01Z")
> [@pugluvr](#): > > Egad, they were eating the crap way back in the '20s - a lot earlier than I supposed. By the 1920s, it was an old favorite, enjoyed by several generations. According to my earlier cite, they started producing deviled ham around 1870. Gen-u-wine, fine old American cuisine, by gum! ---
**Author:** ![nocturnal\_tick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@nocturnal\_tick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nocturnal_tick)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/33 "2004-06-05T14:00:26Z")
Oh **Eve** , you do please me with your strange and exotic tales. From the link: > [@](#): > > Taste the teasing taste in sandwiches… Now that’s advertising! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/34 "2004-06-05T14:19:06Z")
Remember: This was back in the 1920’s, before the age of refrigerators. All that crap was put into, under, around, and through meat to cover up the fact that it was going bad. I don’t eat meat, but if I did it would be plain meat, not a spiced-up la-de-dah hunk. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/35 "2004-06-05T14:36:39Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > Kinky. I like it. If you look real close (not that I did, no sirree, it was, uh, someone else who pointed this out to me. yea. that’s what happenned.), you will notice that the devil seems to be stuffing, or possibly wearing a cup. In either case, here we are, 80 years later. Do you think any cartoon pitchman in this day and age would ever dare suggest that he might have genitalia? :shudder: 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/36 "2004-06-05T14:56:31Z")
Hey, check out this [1909 advertisement](http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/gifts/ham.htm) (you may have to go to 800x600 screen resolution to render it readable). I love the last panel: > [@](#): > > All alone, …with nothing in the house but Underwood’s ‘Deviled Meats,’… Hubba, hubba. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/37 "2004-06-05T15:25:01Z")
Has anyone had the courage to eat “Potted Meat Product”? It usually comes in tiny blue cans and is sold by the Vienna Sausages, Spam, and Underwood Ham. That stuff was so scary looking and smelling. Nothing I have ever fed to a dog or a cat could possibly taste as bad. I am not dainty about food, I often eat tripe (in the form of menudo) and other innards, gizzards, and giblets. I still remember going on school picnicks where we brown bagged lunches in the fourth grade, and a kid would pop one of these cans open - ewwww. I am sure the kids that ate that regularly are now dead. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/38 "2004-06-05T15:32:40Z")
> [@syncrolecyne](#): > > Has anyone had the courage to eat “Potted Meat Product”? … That stuff was so scary looking and smelling. While I’ll happily consume Deviled Ham or Chicken Spread, I’m with you on the generic “potted meat.” I don’t think I want to know what’s in it. When I was in Egypt, I enjoyed eating _kofta_, which is a meatball-ish, hamburger-ish type of food. I once asked a waiter what was in the _kofta_ - he looked me straight in the face, and said, “Meat.” Having earlier that day passed a butcher’s shop that had a donkey head in the window, I figured I didn’t want to pursue that line of questioning any further. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/39 "2004-06-05T16:31:22Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > Hey, check out this [1909 advertisement](http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/gifts/ham.htm) (you may have to go to 800x600 screen resolution to render it readable). I love that ad: Sarah (as played by a young Molly Goldberg) sells her soul to Satan when her husband brings home unexpected dinner guests. “In desperation I searched the kitchen. Thanks [to] my Quaker ancestry forethought, I found four cans of Underwood’s Deviled Meats. Here was a bridge to safety.” And so, Sarah fashioned the Deviled Meats into a crude bridge out the window to the next tenement building, where the young Marx Brothers adopted her and worked her into their act as Lotta Miles. George and his guests went hungry, and somewhere Satan laughed. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723/40 "2004-06-05T16:43:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **syncrolecyne** > _Has anyone had the courage to eat “Potted Meat Product”? … That stuff was so scary looking and smelling._ A rather strange friend of mine gave me a can as a high school graduation present. Thirty-three years later, I’m _still_ wondering what he meant by that… I agree with the “smells like cat food” test, however. I remember once buying a jar of baby food chicken for one of my babies. Took one whiff and fed it to the cats. (They loved it.) After that, my kid got finely chopped up table meat! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deviled-ham-its-cat-food/248723.md?page=3)