At one or two dollars a pound, these cans are really about the cheapest meals that you could eat straight out of the package. Having tasted many different varieties of Chef Boyardee, I have come to the conclusion that they have approximately 1 (+/- 0.2) different types of sauce (full listing of sauces: very salty orangish tomato sauce). And yet when it comes down to it, having grown up eating the dinosaur- or ABC- or X-men-shaped pastas, I can still happily down a can for a meal – of course, my tastes have matured (marginally) – I know prefer the more sophisticated “Overstuffed Italian Sausage Ravioli.”
How does such a redundant brand manage to stay fresh in taste and mind? I think that it’s the same staying power that grounds good old mac and cheese, Cheerios cereal, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They’re desired precisely because you know exactly how they’ll turn out. I’ve had many a bad experience with (very dry) grilled chicken; hamburgers aren’t always consistent in juiciness or flavor, and salads can be old and brown. But I’ve never had a bad can of Chef Boyardee. Not that I’ve ever had an especially luxurious one, but the absence of any taints on their record is really astounding. Consider that in the past ten years, McDonald’s has continually downsized their burgers and variously switched in and out McChicken vs. Crispy chicken; Yona’s subs and pizza at the food trucks is now Yona’s subs (only); Hardee’s turned from fried chicken to humongous burgers; Mr. Wok, the local Chinese buffet, has since converted half of its stuff to Mexican food to adapt to its clientele base.
And yet through it all, I cannot detect a difference in the taste of Chef Boyardee. For as long as I can remember, it’s been the gold standard of the “tried-and-true” recipe. And in a world where the variation in experimental outcomes can throw off the most flexible of researchers, it’s nice to have something predictable for a change.
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