My grandparent's used to can meat. Of course, they had a real honest-to-god cannery in their town, run by the local grange.

I remember my dad opening a can of meat in 1976, that had been canned over 10 years before. While it 'looked' a little funny, it smelled, and subsequently tasted, great!

Grandma used to can all her vegetables, meat, fish, whatever, to preserve for any future tough times ahead.

We were down visiting one year, after a spring flood had come up a couple of inches in her basement, and removed the labels from the bottom row of cans on the shelf.

We ate 'surprise' vegetables all through that visit.