I have seen the face of death on a piece of toast
Some things from the past are best left to the past. The segregation of schools. Smallpox, Cop Rock… and Libby's Spread n' Heat Pizza.
Born in 1975 of an unholy union between a can of Manwich and a bottle of Ragu, Spread n' Heat Pizza sounds good on paper, provided you're hungover and have had nothing else to eat for weeks. Shoveling disappointment into your mouth was never easier: toast a piece of bread and open up a can of Libby's SHP. It's got pizza spices! Pizza 'meat' (the finest cow forehead to be sure) and the reassurance of a container labeled to enforce that the sludge on your knife is, indeed, related to a food that maybe you enjoyed at some point in your life.
Libby's says that all that's needed to complete your authentic pizza experience is three minutes. So fast! But this speed comes at a cost: the amount of preservatives needed to make Spread n' Heat Pizza's left-hand path magic happen is likely enough to embalm a right whale. I'm not too proud to admit that I enjoyed the silly shit out of this stuff when I was wee. But I'm also wise enough to have forgotten about it until I stumbled upon a Reddit post that brought back all the delicious trauma. For taste, I'll place it right up there next to Chef Boy R Dee's pizza kit, but well below those shelf-stable crusts and sauce kits that Costco used to sell.
They say that every hot dog you eat takes 36 minutes off of your life. I'm no dietitian, but I'm betting that the amount of time above the dirt that Spread n' Heat Pizza likely has to be measured in years.
