Cans Not Canoodling: The Month of Canned Food

There’s much love in the air this February. Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, RAG Blind Date is about to kick off and this is all tied together by the fact that February itself is the Month of Love. It’s beautiful, frankly, that these grey, miserable days are elevated by this sense of joy, happiness and…oversweet clamour associated with relationships.

An intense love if I ever saw one

Why February? Why is February, a drab month, themed around something fruitful and full of vibrancy? This strikes me as bizarre. Lovers will love regardless of time or month (throwing up a little). However, making February the Month of Love is perhaps only because it offers up the perfect setting for the un-loved to mope. Staring out the window longingly on a summer’s day does not seem appropriate. However, in February, when the raindrops mirror your own sense of plummeting self-esteem and the white, stark sky reflects your own arid romantic life, as far as the un-loved go, February as the Month of Love makes sense.

This one’s entitled ‘Longing’

However, I have just likened a falling raindrop to one’s own declining self-image. That’s not okay. If you’re in love, good for you. You celebrate it every day and I’m not sure why a whole month should be dedicated to your own successes. This is why it is important not to marginalise other celebrations that are associated with February.

February is also the MONTH of CANNED FOOD.

Although I do not think RAG will anytime soon be basing its fund-raising activities around tinned condiments, I do think remembering this valuable celebration is important and we shouldn’t let our busy lives forget that.

Love (with a human being) is futile. Love is fleeting. Love is unpredictable. Canned food is straight down the line. Canned food is stodgy and will hang around you(r stomach) for hours on end, unlike that brooding male you met last week.

Simply put, February Canned Food Month is far better than anything February Love Month can offer. A tin of food is the best partner you can ever wish for.

What I simply love about canned food is its tamper-resistance. You never have this guarantee with a fresh baguette wrapped in fake papier de la boulangérie and, frankly, when was the last time you were able to purchase tamper-resistance for your heart, hmm? Your roomie, a roaming child or a saboteur won’t be able to open your tinned beef ravioli without it going unnoticed. Something that I cannot guarantee with love.

Haute cuisine in the canning industry

If the tin is dented on the outside, you know it will be poisonous on the inside. These are the equivalent of ‘bad boys’. This concept is always tricky. You come across ruffians on the outside who display a soft, unexpected, kind centre (see Cornetto Enigma Big Bear advert for more info). However, there are some rapscallions who are bad through and through. With canned food, however, when there is a dent on the outside, you know the seal is broken. You know the inside is tarnished. You steer clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jaOafGz3k

Canned food is also the epitome of flexibility. You can get anything in a tin. There is no way you can speak of this same variety in a relationship. So much so that there are limited parallels you can draw between a meal of tinned frankfurters followed by a can of steamed sponge pudding and a relationship. This diversity will appeal to you in every mood and accommodate for those niche desires you crave. A relationship does not offer this same fluidity that canned food does and this just provides further evidence for February’s need for rebranding.

There’s no monogamy when it comes to canned food

In essence, it seems self-evident that we spread the word about Canned Food Month for the loved and un-loved alike. It is both a quick-fix alternative to February the Month of Love but also potentially offers a much more bountiful and enduring relationship. Just one word of warning: steer clear of Heinz Chicken and Sweetcorn Soup. Truly abhorrent.