Vintage 1950s Van Camp's Spanish Rice Label 🍚 Steeped in Civil War History

Remember Van Camp's Spanish Rice? 🍚 Van Camp's Spanish Rice Can Label, Stokely-Van Camp, Indianapolis

Size: 9 3/4" x 4.2" ~ Little to no edge wear.

Vintage 1950s Van Camp's Spanish Rice Label from Indianapolis, Indiana! This one makes me hungry. A big gray-green bowl is heaped with red Spanish rice, studded with chunks of tomato, green pepper and slices of okra, set on a cream panel between bands of deep red. Van Camp's is written across the top in big cream script, with TRADE MARK and REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. underneath, and SPANISH RICE in yellow capitals along the bottom. It's an unused paper label, never wrapped around a can.

The side panels tell the whole story. On the left: "Heat Eat Enjoy," NET WEIGHT 15 OZ. = 425 GRAMS, and the ingredients, rice, tomato puree, onions, sweet peppers, cheese, vegetable oil, okra, sugar, salt, spices, vinegar and monosodium glutamate. Under that: "Van Camp's Famous for Fine Foods Since 1861, Packed in U.S.A." and DISTRIBUTED BY STOKELY-VAN CAMP, INC., GENERAL OFFICE, INDIANAPOLIS, IND., U.S.A. On the right, the company brags that its chefs "spent months developing this delicious product so that its exciting colors would please the eye and the true Spanish flavor would satisfy the taste," and the directions say: empty it into a saucepan, "Do not cook, but simply heat." Along the trim tab at the edge are the printer's codes, VCS-124, 300X407 (the can size) and INT. 51 P. O. 36850. The back is blank. My pictures seriously don't do it justice.

🎖️ Since 1861, and the Civil War

That "Since 1861" is the real thing. In 1861 in Indianapolis, Gilbert Van Camp and his associates Calvin Fletcher and Martin Williams built what became the nation's first successful commercial cold storage warehouse. Van Camp started out preserving fruits and vegetables, and by 1862 he was canning them in the summer for eating in the winter. Soon after, he landed a contract to supply Union troops during the Civil War, and when the veterans came home they kept buying the canned food they'd gotten used to in the army.

The Van Camp Packing Company was founded in 1882 and started selling ketchup in 1888. In 1894 Gilbert's son Frank Van Camp came up with the famous recipe for pork and beans in tomato sauce, and by 1898 the company was turning out six million cans a year. By 1909 Indiana, with a big push from the Van Camps, was the nation's leading producer of canned baked beans. Frank went on to found Van Camp Seafood, too.

🥫 Stokely-Van Camp

The name on the bottom of this label dates it to 1933 or later. That year the company was bought by James and John Stokely, who ran the Stokely canned tomato company in Newport, Tennessee, and the combined firm became Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., headquartered in Indianapolis. And here's a twist: by the 1970s Stokely-Van Camp was producing, marketing and distributing a new drink called Gatorade, the first sports drink, which ended up outselling all of the company's other products put together. Quaker Oats bought Stokely-Van Camp in 1983 and sold the Van Camp's brand to ConAgra in 1995. Van Camp's beans are still on the shelf today.

🖼️ For the Kitchen Wall

Frame it for the kitchen, add it to a can label collection, or give it to anybody who grew up on Van Camp's pork and beans. It's a bright, cheerful piece of mid-century grocery art.