Was there a particular Abercrombie famous in 1966, that readers would have recognized? And thereby gotten a joke? Or just a fanciful name, whose associations we no longer get? And would the lecture have been about food spoilage and safety, or is her remark directed at the idea of putting up with something you regard as unpleasant?
Comics I Don't Understand 
‘Abercrombie and ‘Fitch’ are the names of the two garbage collectors in the strip.
Ah, thank you Lisah, that’s a big help!
Yup, Lisah got it in one.
Yes, that changes the picture! But we do face some remaining questions. Just what is the lesson Lois means to convey, in referencing a lecture from Mr Abercrombie?
Apparently Abercombie makes a habit of commenting on food waste.
I thought one of the main points of putting food in cans was to preserve it without having to use refrigeration. Who stores unopened tins of anything into the fridge? Or am I missing something?
@ Narmitaj – That certainly true now, but this strip was published nearly 60 years ago, and probably reflects the author’s knowledge going back a decade or more before that. I have never bought a canned ham, but I wonder whether they were subjected to the same level of Pasteurization temperatures of other canned foods. It’s possible that refrigeration was a sensible extra measure to preclude spoilage.
Okay, so we know who Mr Abercrombie is. He’s a garbage man who objects to food wastage.
What’s the joke?
I’m with Narmitaj on refrigerating a canned ham. But some Googling was interesting:
Canned hams come in two forms. Shelf-stable canned hams can be stored in the pantry at room temperature for up to two years. Canned hams that are labeled “Keep Refrigerated” are not safe stored in the pantry. Refrigerate them immediately and store in the refrigerator no longer than six to nine months.
So I guess this was the second type.
As for what the joke is, I assume it’s that the garbage guy feels it’s reasonable to lecture the homeowner about food waste. Sixty years ago, that was probably so ludicrous that it was funny. Nowadays it’s a Facebook post with your 572 friends nodding sagely at the wisdom of the exploited refuse collector.
I think the joke is part of the running gag where Abercrombie offers unsolicited advice to Hi and Lois when collecting their garbage… and that he’s often shown to be more educated and sophisticated than one might expect a garbageman to be.
Lois didn’t notice a ham on the shelf for weeks? Hi did the shopping 60 years ago?
Hi helped put the groceries away, and being a husband 60 years ago would not have known much about proper food storage. Thanks to phsiiicidu for reminding me about types of canned ham. Ambercrombie, one of the garbage men, occasionally got a bit preachy, as I recall. (Some similarity to the garbage man in Dilbert)
Canned ham is still around, and still sold in those distinctively-shaped cans. You have to be a geezer to remember opening one with a key which you wound around and around the side of the can. But if you are such a geezer, you probably saw that strip in the original run in the paper, and you remember the garbage men as supporting characters.
Yes, MiB, I am such a geezer. I could rarely get the metal strip to wind neatly around the key, though.
Fitch has the hat with the turned-up brim that says: T R A Ƨ H.
We still have tinned meat you open with an attached key here in UK-land, and presumably elsewhere, though it is generally corned beef. Maybe SPAM is as well, come to think of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CNX5h1Y-lg shows you how to open such a tin.
For the benefit of our American readers, corned beef in the UK is what you call bully beef. What you call corned beef we call salt beef.
As for spam (of course) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKNt0MhTkk
And in the interests of balance https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/nov/07/spam-is-back-chefs-on-their-favourite-recipes-from-katsu-curry-to-spam-fries-with-cheesy-kimchi-sauce
MikeP: I’ve never heard “bully beef” in the wild in the US. The stuff in a can is “canned corned beef”, as opposed to just “corned beef” or maybe “deli corned beef”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_beef supports my perception. Not that it matters, just interesting! I’ve been fascinated by the differences in Spanish usage, which seem far more extensive than even UK/US English, e.g., eleven words for drinking straw:
https://www.speakinglatino.com/spanish-language-words-for-drinking-straw/
If a Brit refers to “petrol” or “the boot” in the US, chances are reasonable that an American will know what they mean, at least in my experience. These drinking straw words, OTOH, are completely unknown. I liked two straws, back when I used to drink Diet Coke, and in the drive-thru I’d say “Uno popote mas” and sometimes get a blank look. I learned to say “Dos pajillas?” and that would usually get understanding, as Mexico and Central American usage covers most of the Spanish-speakrs around here.
Never heard of “bully beef either” – but I grew up in a Jewish family, which while did not keep Kosher (except the first year I was In Hebrew school – mom worried about my going on Sunday morning and saying something like “We had great bacon today with breakfast”. or such) tended to stick to Kosher type foods with things (such as that bacon) added in (though that year we were Kosher we had something called “beef fry” instead. (Dad having been in the army knew about many foods that mom never had in her life – though her parents did not keep Kosher either.)
Just asked Robert and he never heard of bully beef either (and he is not Jewish). So right now he is looking up it and it seems to be corned beef hash – not corned beef itself in a can.