Anyone who knows me would be shocked I’ve never actually tasted a Slim Jim given my proclivity for junk snacks. It isn’t even that I don’t think I’d like the taste; it’s more that these are usually located near the cash register where the candy is and if my eyes ever wandered towards junk they were drawn to chocolate and caramel as opposed to meatstuff.
My “Packed in Cellophane All Beef Ready-to Eat Spiced Sausage Treat for 10¢” Slim Jim cig dunk is one of my favorite tin ashtrays. I’m especially intrigued with the slogan, “Make Your Next Drink Taste Better”.
If that’s the best thing that can be said about the taste of Slim Jims I will probably spend the rest of my life never having partaken of one.
I’m not quite sure what’s in a Slim Jim but among its ingredients is “mechanically separated chicken”. I’m not quite sure what that is either.
Slim Jim’s are manufactured by the Cherry-Levis Food Prod. Corp. Any company that’s too lazy to write out ‘Productions’ or “Products’ is Kitsch enough for me. Not to mention that Cherry Levis sounds like a great drink or line of jeans.
Speaking of great drinks, I left that Slim Jim soaking in my Vernors Ginger Ale after I took that photo and now it looks like a life preserver.
Seen from another angle it looks like a variety of things:
Speaking of angles, after hawking pickled pig’s feet to local taverns and observing that the most popular food there was pepperoni, Adolph Levis, inventor of the Slim Jim in the 1940’s, created his own preserved meat product that rather than curing for weeks could transform in a matter of days via fermentation and hot smoking.
Speaking of smoking, my Slim Jims ashtray has little cigarette rests…
… though I think using it as an appetizer tray and resting a Slim Jim there is more appropriate.
denny
The swollen part looks like a monkey’s private parts but I would kill for that Atomic table that it is sitting on, that’s beautiful!
Allee
Yes to the monkey, especially with the drip at the end. Atomic table is in actuality a tile counter, circa 1937.
Allee
Oh, just realized the Atomic table you’re talking about isn’t the tile counter. It’s a circular 1950s table originally covered in white crushed ice Formica. I flipped it over and covered the original exposed wood back with original 1950’s salmon boomerang Formica that you see on it now. That particular pattern was reissued about 20 years ago but the Formica I was was original stock.
Sheryl Bryant
This blog gave me a bunch of good laughs. Really funny, Allee. And I used to sell Slim-Jims in the 60’s at the local swimming pool snack pavilion! I nibbled on quite a few in my day.
Allee
Now if I had that job I would have done my share of nibbling too.
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The swollen part looks like a monkey’s private parts but I would kill for that Atomic table that it is sitting on, that’s beautiful!