Canned Tuna

Canned Tuna - Canned Trauma

What is this nightmare? Who decided this was good? It has left a bad taste in my mouth, and a black mark on my soul.

I’m talking about the soul-crushing, disgusting food-like product called canned tuna fish. Ewwww! I can’t even … but I will try to get through this rant/story without throwing up.

I was around six years old, staying with my favorite aunt and uncle and cousins, while my parents took off for a few days. Playing with my cousin and staying over was always a blast, but on one of those days, for an afternoon lunch, my aunt made Campbell’s tomato soup and tuna fish sandwiches. And she made me eat it! Because she didn’t know this meal was the terror of my soul. Her kids liked it, and most kids do, I suppose. I think I did gag some of it down at her severe chastisement, but I will never forget the disgusting resentment I felt in that moment, interrupting my childhood bliss. Damn tuna fish!

I can’t stand canned tuna fish, nor canned tomato soup! But I was a weird kid when it came to food. I couldn’t stand anything consisting of tomato, including ketch-up or spaghetti, I hated baked beans, but loved broccoli, as well as dark bread. My mom learned to swap out tuna for canned chicken in everything that called for tuna, as just the overpowering smell of it would make me gag. Still does. I eat fresh tomatoes now, grown from our garden, and I eat our own tomato sauce, but I still cannot force down baked beans or tuna fish. Canned tuna is supposedly cheap and easy and universally loved. Why?

My mom even tried to trick me one time as a teenager. I don’t know why. She had made a pasta salad for my younger brothers and I to eat after school. It sat, freshly made and looking glorious, on the counter. Then she pulled the plastic wrap off the top and the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked at her with wide, unbelieving eyes before storming from the room. She will forever pay for that betrayal. That’s how deeply I despise canned tuna.

People enjoy tuna casserole frequently. It’s a dish often served at family gatherings, or eaten as a comfort food. I can’t understand that one. It would just make me puke, and if you offered it to me, I would know you as my enemy.

The only use I might contemplate for a can of tuna is it’s possibility as a weapon. I can take an unopened can and whip it at an intruder’s head. Although, I would never have one in my house to reach for if needed. The incident would have to take place in a grocery store, and for some crazy reason, I would have to be perusing the canned tuna section. The entire scenario seems unfeasible.

I am now in my fifth decade of life. My bitterness toward prepared tuna has only grown. Never once have I opened a can for my daughter or my husband or for anyone. Cat food smells better.

Of course, I would probably eat canned tuna over Mariann’s Balut, but if those were my choices, I just might die.

This is my contribution to the Yucky Food Challenge organized by Donna Renee and Paul Stewart. There is no prize awarded, it just offers the author a chance to relate the disgust of certain foods commonly (or uncommonly) consumed. Feel free to add your own disturbing food encounters in the comments!