Can it!

I was recently discussing my household recycling efforts with a friend, and I remarked at how many cans I recycle. My friend -- a French-trained chef and a food editor -- looked shocked. "I never use canned foods," she sniffed.

Hello? Tuna? Tomatoes? Beans? Broth? Without these staples, I'd be eating frozen pizza four nights out of seven (I'd cook it first, though).

Then there's more exotic canned and bottled goods -- Hoisin sauce, Thai curry, sun-dried tomatoes in oil, coconut milk, roasted red peppers, chutney -- that make it possible to add interesting tastes to even a plain dish of rice or pasta.

For those of us who don't have the luxury of shopping daily for those fresh, local, seasonal items, canned (and bottled) products are a lifesaver.

Laura Karr clearly thinks so. She's the author of the newly published "Can Opener Gourmet" (Hyperion, 2002), a celebration of canned and bottled foods.

Karr described herself in a phone interview as a "lazy cook" and "picky eater" who, nevertheless, learned to appreciate good food while helping her grandmother in her catering work. She said her grandmother, whom she described as a "good Southern cook" -- the kind who puts up her own preserves -- is not at all horrified by Karr's can opener cuisine. "She keeps a huge pantry stocked with tomatoes, corn and beans and such," said Karr. "She knows the value of convenience."

There are a few things in Karr's cookbook that made me recoil -- canned roast beef (she swears it's delicious) and baby food, which she uses in everything from banana bread to butternut squash soup. (To be fair, I haven't tried those recipes yet, but they just SOUND weird to me.)

And I do find frozen lemon juice far superior to the bottled kind that Karr uses liberally (and which I think tastes like industrial cleaner).

But I think she's really on to something. After all, as she points out, canned foods are usually additive-free, keep at least two years, are available year-round, offer great variety and are often on sale at bargain prices.

Canned foods, however, are not for everyone, as even Karr admitted. "I feed my cats dry food," she said. "Otherwise, they'd go crazy every time I use the electric can opener."