Seth McGinn's CanCooker

The Meal in a Can

- Ryan Lee Price

Anybody who stayed up too late in the mid-1980s remembers the cringe-worthy infomercial for the Showtime Rotisserie. This appliance cooked Flint stone-sized hunks of meat. Studio audience members bellowed like parrots, “Set it and forget it!” Seth McGinn’s CanCooker makes the same type of claims, suited for cooks on the go.

Inspired by the meals cooked in a 10-gallon cream can and served to ranch hands on his grandparents’ cattle farm in Nebraska, Seth McGinn wanted to replicate his childhood experience but had trouble finding a modern can that could handle the task. In 2009, he brought his own to market, allowing people to cook a lot of food with little effort.

Made from FDA-approved 1060 anodized aluminum, the CanCooker comes in three varieties: the 4-gallon Original, the 2-gallon CanCooker Jr., and the 4-gallon Bone Collector (which appears to offer nothing different than a dire name and a deer skull logo for a penny less than the Original). They’re 10 inches in diameter, but the Jr. is 3 inches shorter than the 10-inch stature of the other two.