To get healthier and wealthier, avoid Veganuary – and do ‘Canuary’ instead

When money’s tight, it is possible to craft some truly decent, wholesome meals with tinned food – but we’re losing the art of storecupboard cooking, says Flic Everett

Tinned food fell out of favour when British families stopped eating Libby’s Fruit Cocktail with evaporated milk for pudding, and started buying the infinitely more sophisticated Viennetta. Suddenly, it was no longer cool to serve tinned corn, when you could keep a giant bag of it in the freezer – and even canned Goblin meatballs stopped counting as one of your five-a-day.

Yet “pantry staples”, as the lifestyle writers like to call them, haven’t gone anywhere.

The food-canning process has existed since 1809, when French manufacturer Nicolas Appert was asked to provide edible rations for the army and navy, and came up with the “heat and seal” process.

Perhaps the real learning curve was the botulism we caught along the way (I still recall my grandmother’s dread of a dented tin), but nowadays, tinned food is probably the safest, and cheapest, you can eat – plus it lasts through at least six house moves and two divorces, until you’re finally ready to do something with those three-for-two chickpeas.

Maybe that’s why, rather than Veganuary, many of us are instead turning to “Canuary”.

The cost of living remains crippling, and fresh food prices are astronomical. But tinned beans, soup and vegetables generally cost less than a pound (this jury remains out on tinned fruit, however – sorry, Seventies mums).

I hesitate to echo Jack Monroe, author of the Tin Can Cook, who was roundly mocked for suggesting we should rinse baked beans and cook them in a better sauce. Clearly, nothing is better than the weak, sugary tomato broth that enfolds them on their journey to the food cupboard. But it is possible to craft some truly decent meals with canned food.

Potatoes from a tin come ready-peeled, fully cooked, and make an incredible potato salad, without the faff of cooling starch-leaking Maris Pipers in a colander for hours. Tinned mushrooms are usually the button kind, and can be tipped into a curry or pasta at the last minute, no cleaning and frying required. Throw tinned corn in a rice salad, or blend into chowder. Chop a bit of mint into mushy peas. (Yes, I am middle class. I never leave a supermarket without a dropping pack of fresh herbs that will instantly turn to slime in the fridge.)

Of course, we all use tinned tomatoes – but beyond the rows of chopped and peeled toms, there’s endless varieties of beans and pulses that will bling up a minestrone or make a stew that lasts for days. I don’t care if you don’t want to eat cannellini casserole till next Thursday, it’s January and we’re poor.

And let’s not forget the absolute joy of tinned fish – not a sentence I ever imagined myself writing, but here we are. Tuna pasta may be a staple of student bedsits, but nowadays, chic delis display bright, retro sardine tins and mackerel cans as if they’re artworks, and the very finest, such as Ortiz in its wonderfully vintage yellow packaging, can cost up to £10. Fortunately, the more pedestrian John West – and own-brand fish – tastes perfectly nice, and will jazz up pasta, salads and things-on-toast faster than you can say “I miss the old keys on sardine tins”. It’s also ludicrously good for you.

Even pre-prepared tinned food, such as curries and what we used to call “chunky chicken” –  indeterminate poultry strands, in a glutinous white sauce – can be useful when you need something edible in a hurry. Who needs to microwave a pricey ready-meal when you can tip a can of Bombay potatoes into a pan?

Most crucially, let’s not forget the comfort and joy of tinned soups. No British person should ever be bed-bound with a winter virus without somebody bringing them a steaming bowl of Heinz tomato with sliced white bread.

Can you really save money, eat good food and waste nothing in January? Yes, you can.