I was at someone’s house and I smelled this awful smell, and he said he had made “hash”. This comes from a can. I didn’t want to be rude, but what on earth is it made from to smell like that?
Try opening a can of potted beef (the kind sold in the U.S. in a lopped-off pyramidal can with a “key”-style opener, usually of Brazilian beef, IIRC). If that’s the smell you’re talking about, you’ve got your man. I find the meat rather good, although the canned hash is not something I enjoy.
That said, hash, as a generic dish, has quite a respectable history. See first edition – and perhaps later revisions – of Joy of Cooking for old-school recipes.
There’s actually a column on this from the SD Staff:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcornedbeef.html
What you are smelling is essentially just salt and meat. Really it’s probably not much different from having just stuck your nose in a bag of beef jerky–only you weren’t expecting it.
The definition of “has” in Ambrose Beirce’s the Devil’s Dictionary goes something like this:
“hash – x – There is no definition for this word. Nobody knows what hash is.”
The x occupied the space telling what Part of Speech the word was – verb or noun or adverb or whatever. Beirce was saying that no one even knew what kind of word “hash” was.
I love what I call hash - mashed potatoes with canned corned beef, corn kernels, cheese and tons of freshly ground pepper mixed through. Served on toast with sweet mustard pickles on the side.
In a fishy mood I substitute tuna for the corned beef and chili sauce for the pickles.
Around here when you go to a barbeque restaurant there’s barbeque, which here is pulled pork with sauce (you may fight to the death on tomato, mustard, or vinegar, but South Carolina is one place on earth where we have all three) and then there’s hash. Nobody talks about the hash. Either you eat it or you don’t - personally, I don’t, there’s too many other tasties on the buffet.
Seriously, I think it’s other parts of the pig, ground up and spiced or something.
In our family, hash was always some form of meat (usually corned beef) chopped up and fried with diced potatoes and some diced onions. This is still the way I like it. But it can be just about any mixture of foodstuffs, all chopped into a pile and fried.
It was a staple foodstuff for soldiers (British, at least) in the trenches during the Great War. It was nicknamed bully beef.
Bickfords Hash Smash was the ultimate post drinking meal.
Hash, over a bagel, covered with eggs & Cheeze sauce. </homer gurgle>
I make a verson for myself at home, and it’s just as good. Hash is a great use for leftover meats & refrigerator ingredients. Toss it all in a cast iron, or nonstick pan on low, and fry away for a while. Perfect has should be dry to the touch, not particularly oily, but still a little moist in the mouth. It should have a few crunchy browned bits hidden inside.
My base recipe is finely diced meat (beef/port/turkey), precooked, finely diced potatoes, onions (browned in the pan before addition of the other precooked ingredients), and garlic. Season with Montreal Steak seasoning to taste.
I love it that the ad at the bottom of the page for a thread about hash is a book called “The Keys to God’s Kingdom.” The Greeks had ambrosia, now we have hash!!!
-rainy
It’s what you do with the corned beef and boiled potato leftovers from St. Patrick’s Day, of course! Just chop those suckers up into 1/4 inch bits, mix 'em, and freeze in zip-top freezer bags. To cook, thaw and then brown it in a skillet - use some butter or oil if your corned beef was very lean. Corned beef hash is really spectacular with eggs over easy - with the liquid yolks smeared into the hash. (Use pasteurized eggs if you’re afraid of the Food Police.)
The canned stuff, like most canned stuff, will do in a pinch, but it’s too salty to be ideal.
Same can be done with pot roast leftovers, only then it’s called Roast Beef Hash. I’ve not tried it with ham, but I bet that would be good too. Heck, even fish hash might be worth trying - after all, white fish goes well with breading or tater tots, and that’s basically what we’re mixing…
In New England, we make a boiled dinner with corned beef, potatoes and beets, then use the leftovers to make “red flannel hash.”
The Southern barbeque hash I mentioned above is not (to my knowledge) fried. No skillets about it. You dish it out of a cauldron.
The stuff that comes in a can is typically either corned beef hash or roast beef hash, and it consists, as near as I can tell, of canned meat and chopped-up potatoes. The canned meat family, of course, gets no respect, containing as it does Spam, Vienna sausages, and dog food, but some people find it quite tasty. When I was a kid, the standard way to prepare canned hash was to fry it in a pan with some eggs.
I opened a can of Hormel corned beef hash a couple months ago (for the first time in many years). 50% of it stuck to the pan. Oddly, it smelled better than I remember. I’m a big fan of corned beef, but I prefer mine on a Reuben sandwich.
Isn’t the “hash” part refering to the potatoes in it? Think hash browns.
A Southern food that’s neither barbequed nor fried? 
I suppose there’s a first time for everything.
Hash derives from the French term hacher, to chop. While most hashes have potatoes as a component, that isn’t where the term comes from. Come to think of it, I don’t seem to recall ever having a hash sans potatoes.
Thanks! I have always steered clear of it in favor of “hash” but it’s good to know the difference. I think I made the right choice for me.
None other than Robert Blake played Little Rascal Mickey, in on episode where his parents were always fighting because they had to eat hash on Mondays, after the bulk of the food budget was spent on Sunday dinner.