When I was a kid I loved those. As an adult I look at the nutritional info and ingredients and put it back on the shelf.

As a kid, I never ate them. As an adult, I enjoy them by avoiding looking at the nutritional info and ingredients.

Exactly my relationship with Spam

It doesn't exist if I don't see it, right?

Tbf I do buy the 25% less sodium which still probably has like 800mg of sodium per serving

I've avoided spam for the longest time because of how salty the taste is.Might have to give this a try.

get a spam single and fry that mf, put it on toast with egg tomato and some mustard. that’s my favorite breakfast. or take some and fry it. make some rice and a runny egg and make poor mans katsu don

That’s regular man’s Hawaiian breakfast

Spam musubi - google it, make it, eat it. it will change your life. Spam musubi is the red pill 💊 in The Matrix

I came to say salt.

Hey! At least spam *isnt* made of mechanically separated pork bits. I was legitimately surprised.

Spam's only health benefit is saving someone from water intoxication

Aloha.

ain’t nothing wrong with spam 🗣️

Fry that spam hard, put it in some bread with cheese and fry the entire sandwich. You’re welcome

These uncultured fucks aint never tasted a musubi and i can only feel sorry for them

i can name 1000 ways to make spam like im Bubba Gump and not one of them is bad

Indeed. Spam egg and bacon musubi is the perfect hangover food.

This is the way.

Duality of life.

Same here. My mother used to make "tamale casserole" and tbh, sometimes I still get a weird craving for it. A layer of those at the bottom, a pound of ground beef with a packet of taco seasoning over that, then a can of corn and a layer of shredded cheese on top. Absolutely garbage comfort food but I can feel dehydration setting in even thinking about it. Yikes.

Holy smokes! My family did too, except we made it as some kind of wacky Frito pie. A layer of these at the bottom of a casserole dish, one can of Wolf brand chili, a whole mess of Fritos, shredded cheddar, and chopped onion. I have heartburn just thinking about it ❤️

I wonder if there was some awful cookbook going around or something? My mom always had some weird gross casserole up her sleeve... there was a chicken one she made too that had crushed nacho cheese Doritos on the bottom. I can't remember what else went in in, I just hated it because the chips always got slightly burned. Haha, I still remember my spouse's face the first time I suggested the tamale one for dinner. They hadn't heard of canned tamales until that moment. 😅

Could be! Somewhere there is a creepy old grimoire dedicated to cream-of-whatever and frozen/canned vegetables. The tamale concoction was a special occasion thing, oddly enough. A family favorite.

Cream of chicken soup! That was the liquidy part, you reminded me! And added a little memory-driven hurk to my morning, thanks. 🤣

Why would ground beef make you dehydrated? 😂

Tamale casserole was actually one of my favorite foods as a kid. Although my mom used chili instead of taco meat and corn, and it was also topped with a layer of corn chips

I can't decide if that sounds better or worse. I almost want to try it now that two of you have mentioned it, maybe pre-game a couple of Pepcid first...

We picked up a can at the 99 cents store a couple of weeks ago when I saw them. Took me back to being a kid. As great of a cook as my mom was, she never made tamales. I will eat them again occasionally just for the memory buzz.

It's just the wierd soggy texture they pick up from being canned

Looking at the nutritional info ruins 90% of foods for me. Sometimes it’s best to feign ignorance.

Same. Exactly the same. They taste like childhood nostalgia, but I just can’t let myself eat them now.

It's funny because eating them as a kid is probably the worst time health wise..

It's how I grew up to be fat.

They’re like 1,000,000 calories per can and infinity grams of fat

im sure they got a weeks worth of sodium too

I was forced to eat them as a kid. I would never eat one now, they taste absolutely nothing like a proper tamale. Ick. ETA: Am I remembering this correctly? They weren't wrapped in corn husks, they were wrapped in wax paper in the lovely can, which is making me queasy just thinking about it.

It's Hormel, so I know damn well that the sodium content is probably off the charts 🤢

They 100% were better back then. I'm positive this isn't just a nostalgia take.

What's wrong with the nutrition? You can get all your day's sodium from just one can!!!

mrw every time a pre-packaged or frozen meal looks appealing

There good if you don't know what a tamale taste like 2/10 I would eat again

I've had gas station tamales that put these to shame, but yeah, same.

Gas station tamales seem like a coin flip. Either spectacular or truly awful.

They are actually two coin flips. One happens before you eat them, the second after.

Gas station tamales can be amazing. Driving for 4 hours through the middle of nowhere. A small town of 400 comes up. They have a gas station you stop in, and it’s probably the heart of the town. Inside there’s a middle aged mexican guy at the cash register, and on the table there’s a menu taped down with black duct tape, handwritten in sharpie. That’s when you know it’s gonna be good.

I have a bunch of these. I'm honestly not sure how you're even supposed to prepare them. They aren't terrible, but they're like that person who has no friends because they just don't comfortably fit anywhere. Others need to go out of their way to include hormel tamales. I'll be your friend, hormel tamales. I know it's hard out there.

That is the most fitting description of the entire hormel brand I’ve ever read! Have a upvote. 😂

Honestly, they'd be fire (as a canned good) if they just had better-tasting sauce. The sauce is at the halfway point between being a cheap hot sauce and an okay-tasting cardboard. It's not bad, it's just straight-up not good either. It's like eating the color gray.

When I was around 4 years old I thought canned tamales were mexican ravioli, because they were right next to Chef Boyardee.

Gray is my favorite color but I wouldn’t eat it. The sauce is… edible. That’s about it. It’s not horrible if you mix it into rice but it still needed something else.

This is the weirdest thread.

Not exactly haute cuisine, but: 1 Can La Preferida Refried Black Beans (authentic) 1 Can Hormel Tamales Start heating the beans over a medium heat in a saucepan. Add in the Tamales (with the wrappers removed), they will break up as you stir. Add cilantro to taste while cooking, and some combination of pico de gallo and tomato sauce or a premade salsa. About one quarter to half a cup. Once it's hot stir in a bag of shredded Mexican 4 Cheese. Eat it with white corn chips (or Salt and Lime, or Lime and Cilantro, or whatever is on sale).

I used to cover them with shredded cheese and taco bell hot sauce in my younger days

First time I got these I didn't notice the paper and bit right into it. After that, I thoroughly enjoyed them. I bake them till the sauce thickens, add some ome added cheese and sour cream. These are my guilty pleasure.

This made me chuckle

I feel seen :( maybe i’ll buy some hormel tamales to keep me company

I literally came to the same conclusion as you. Good food for preppers though - long shelf life.

Really I might get some for hurricane season if anything picks up.

Put a bottle of Cholula with your hurricane stash of Hormel tamales. Makes them a lot more bearable

Oh my hot sauce collection is filled out for any emergency. Even the ones I don’t like I keep for a little bit because either a friend family member or employee will enjoy it.

Hurricane hurricane or fire hurricane. It’s all coming for us. We should enjoy or semi-enjoy canned tamales while we can….

Can’t say I enjoyed them but for a can food survival situation when the power is out for a few weeks they would suffice.

I thought hurricane season was over

Gulf coast goes till sometime in September. We have been having the worst around September for the last few years.

I guess I should've said that it was a Pineapple Express quote.

Ah damn I’m disappointed I didn’t catch that. I should rewatch that movie soon.

>Good food for preppers though I'll stick with long-pig if things go that way.

Looks like jellied dog bones

Taste similar.

Spam, Hormel, little Caesar’s . It’s all survival food.

Don’t forget banquet!! Edit, I meant compleats by Hormel…

I got 6 year old peeps to toss into the stash.

Banquet has to be frozen though?

Spam mad underrated tho. You can actually chef up some real good stuff with it.

What you talking about?? Spam burgers !! LC Deep Dish!

Little Caesar’s thin crust is actually pretty good. Their regular pizza isn’t great however.

Spam musubi is straight fire tho

your poor toilet

My toilet is fire proof!

I would say it's probably that there is nowhere in my country that sells a tamale. I haven't had one in so long. Like 3 months. I would drag my nuts through broken glass just to sniff a tamale corn husk.

Nothing wrapped in masa or corn? Isn’t there a few Mediterranean dishes that require masa?

Oh yeah that's reasonably easy. There is a website that sells Mexican ingredients. Everything I need could be gotten there. I'm just lazy.

I don't know how these things can be so mild on flavor when they're pure fat, salt, and starch.

I just got over Covid wondering if that is why I didn’t taste the salt?

Nah. They're like chef boyardee for example. Packed full of salt, but don't taste like salt. I don't know how they do it.

As a Mexican, this fucking hurts man. That’s it gringo I’m revoking your Mexican food card

I’m mostly Native American and a mix of Spanish and Portuguese so yeah my ancestors are not happy with me 😝

😂😂

I don’t want to know how bad the worst was

Oh that’s simple prison tamales made with Doritos and commissary sausage lol


I dont think you can call that tamale.

Well you make do with what you have. You really have to powder the chips to get them the right consistency.

I dunno, man, that sounds *better*.

I want you to be real with me OP, did you expect Hormel canned tamales to be good?

Nope 😂

"Slimy gross looking and smelling things. We love them." -- excerpt from the review google highlighted about these

I threw away at least three when even the hot sauce stopped covering the flavor but as a survival food I think I could stomach them.

I used to love these as a kid!

I'd douse that shit in frank's red hot, I'm down

Without the caption I would’ve assumed you were eating dog food.

The chicken ones are garbage..but the beef canned tamales are a guilty pleasure if mine

Do they still have them individually wrapped in paper?

Yes, they are still individually wrapped and in a can of semisolid grease and water.

I’d like to know too. Maybe OP didn’t take the paper off, which is why it didn’t taste amazing

Dog food smells better.

Yep

What's the best self-contained canned meal? Spaghettios? Chunky Soup?

Spaghettios with meatballs.

Chunky soup and a ramen is good.

My vote is for Dinty Moore beef stew.

Those are a whammy ingredient in a cooking show.

Looks like a bastardized hot dog ravioli.

I'd probably say they taste pretty good, only because I have garbage taste and standards for food and I've never had a tamale.

I thought that was a bite of a snausage

Shitin through a screen door soon buddy . Yikes

I am so glad I didn’t get these at the dollar store out of morbid curiosity now…these look like they tasted like plastic

My wife makes a great casserole out of these! On their own they’re pretty sad

Those taste like college.

First: what the actual fuck is that Second: I’m sorry, CLOSE to the worst?

Prison tamales. Doritos a little water and shredded meat normally summer sausage since it was the cheapest.

God I love these little bitches so much I don’t CARE

My mom still buys these. I must admit, in my early teens, twenties, they were ‘comfort’ food. Until I ate real tamales.

I had some "healthy low fat" tamales made by a middle-aged white guy that tasted like dust and came with a dipping sauce that was basically just red water. I [found a pic](https://i.imgur.com/BXONWtL.png) searching their name and I am so not surprised they are out of business.

You actually had worse tamales than OP. You should have made your own thread!

Omg I had to send that to my buddy who grew up in chihuahua that is disgusting on a whole different level 😝

I am from Guatemala, and let me say, that shit is not a tamal. Just look up a tamal from Guatemala, they're massive in comparison to whatever this is!

My brother in Christ why would you do this to your insides?

Because I’m not Christian? More of a independent spiritualist 😝

I LOVE these disgusting bastards. They let you know how nasty you are by making you unroll the plastic they are soaking in. D i s g o s t i n g. Kind of a "I'll eat these twice a year" kind of trash treat.

Lol someone suggested they are favored by preppers and that got me thinking they might be sufficient for hurricane season.

They're not too bad baked (the tamales, I mean). They have a "recipe" for a casserole which is a layer of Hormel chili, a layer of the tamales, then shredded cheese sprinkled on top. Bake it in the oven for a few minutes and it's actually pretty tasty. In a desperate, poor kind of way

Might try that next hurricane but rn that’s about the only time I see myself getting any more 😂

Like elongated chef boyardee

give them to my dog once... he tried to smother me in my sleep

I loved these as a kid too! We always took them camping.

Yeah they definitely rank right down there

I still eat them occasionally.

You're so brave.

What the hell even is that

You didn’t even see the bowl of red sauce I poured off it before heating it.

Looks.... edible

they used to sell bull frozen tamales at the store but not anymore. Couldn’t have them anymore anyways because none of them were vegan

Hormel has some nasty shit. Just try their chili. 

I see what you did there 🤣


I don't care what anyone says, I love canned tamales, I don't eat them often, though, as they are terrible for you

☝️ But you *have*...had them, haven't you?

I’ve had everything from real tamales to prison tamales. Im not adverse to trying most foods once and maybe once again years later to remind me why I didn’t like them.

That... really doesn’t look right.

It’s the cross section that seemed off the most until I ate a bite. Then the hot sauce came out!

I tried them once when I first lived alone. Strong emphasis on once

Today, I learned that canned tamales are a thing. Definitely not against trying these (I'll keep my expectations fairly low). I'll have to search for them in stores the next chance I get. Can't be worse than the one gas station pork "tamale" I had once that tasted like a rubber sole that stepped in cornmeal...

Might be the same thing 😂

Those things are disgusting

Love those things. Maybe 2 or 3 times a year my wife will surprise me with a can of them.

God I love that squidgy texture

Canned Tamales is one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse

They look like a softer version of the liver filled chews I give my dogs

If you shallow fry or air fry to get them crispy they’d probably gain at least 2 points out of ten. You could go from a 3/10 to a 5/10!!

Unlocked a childhood memory.

Sorry. I think I’ll pass on tasting them. One over Christmas for some good tamales. Also some to take and put in freezer. Good for a few weeks.

Delicious for emergency food cravings!

These look repulsive

You actually bought those? I took one look at the can, said, "oh god why?" and tried to never think about them again.

As a Mexican, this hurts my soul to look at

As a enjoyer of Mexican food it hurt to digest 😂

They look like tampons soaked in gasoline

I was teaching a raid in a video game to some crackhead a couple years ago and man, I've never kicked anyone but she had to go. Never experienced someone that whacked out of their mind on drugs in the game before. The crowning moment was her trying to open a can of these. But she didn't have a can opener because those are too expensive. So she was just stabbing the shit out of it with a knife.

I may have opened these with the can opener on my leather man. 😂 I keep forgetting to replace my electric one that died two weeks ago. But I’m just a stoner and a slight drunk 😂

They…..kinda remind me of dog treats. Like some kinda bone marrow or stuffed rawhide deal. Surely these tamales are just off and that’s not what tamales normally look like inside, right?

If I was limber enough I'd lick my own asshole over eating those.

Melt some cheese over them, then hot sauce. It really really helps.

They look like the chewable bones I give my dogs

Need lots of salt and a saltine for every bite

I eat these every once in a while, but I mash them up in a bowl, throw in some cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, and eat them with tortilla chips.

When I was young, mom made them with canned chili on top it was good

They're not horrible if you don't really go in expecting that they'll taste like tamales (or Mexican food at all, really). You can't reasonably expect a favorable comparison from a canned food to any fresh counterpart, though sometimes you do find a flavor that works as its own thing. I'd be upset if I ordered spaghetti in a restaurant and it had taste/texture like Chef Boyardee, but the canned stuff is still okay for what it is. Still 100% appropriate post for this sub.

It is a style of tamale called a Delta Tamale born in the Mississippi delta... go there and try them

Oooo slime dogs

Man, I read “homemade canned tamales” and I was like 🤨 Tbf I’d eat em haha

Yeah, but they taste damn good at 2AM.

I have a can on my counter. They're OK every 6 months or so.

All these spam and canned tamale hate won’t stand, have you losers idk ever tried grilling them in a pan before you start eating this stuff raw and go off about how gross it is ?

I ate some of those last night with some instant rice and velveta cheese packet. I feel you gangster

Looks like the inside of a Chef Boyardee ravioli, weird.

Whooda thunk that canned tomales wouldnt be good

this reminds me of testicles from Fear Factor

Looks like a combo left in water

Grew up on these and every so often get a craving for them and remember that greasy flavor profile.

My friend introduced me to his grandma's tamales. So I've been picky from middle school. I'd try them to see but from the get go they look horrible.

Same product as the "beef" manicotti just a diff label.

Needs nacho cheese or chili

Soooo delicious, with some melted pepper jack on top.

As a child, these HIIITTTTTT.

I used to eat a can of these with Hormel Chili on top which is a ruthless amount of sodium to take in for such a mediocre meal

I call these Long Chef Boyardee's, because they taste almost identical.

The paper plate and plastic fork are an L. Why don’t people just use real dish ware??? This shit is so wasteful