Okay, I know what it is in both its senses, but I also have a few questions about each. As talking about both kinds at once could get a bit lengthy for all of us, I thought I'd make this post about the one that comes in a can.
So first to what I think I know. I believe I did at one time hear what all those letters meant, and if memory serves (it usually doesn't), SPAM was a wartime protein supplement, perhaps for troops that otherwise would have had little of it.
Another story I've heard and not yet tracked down is that SPAM first turned up on Hawaii and perhaps other Pacific Islands during WWII, and that ever after the native islanders have had a particular fondness for it.
... Well, it seems that some of these rumors were true. SPAM, though, is not really an acronym where every letter corresponds to a word. It is simply Hormel's condensation of Spiced Ham. It was originally called Hormel Spiced Ham, but didn't thrive under this more conventional name. SPAM, then, was perhaps an early instance of 'rebranding'. As SPAM has become a kind of cultural icon in its own right, some amusing 'backronyms' have sprung up, including Something Posing as Meat, and Special Product from Austin Minnesota.
The story about SPAM becoming popular in Hawaii and Southeast Asia seems to be correct. It's origin in 1937 could not have been more timely for its broad dissemination in this part of the world. What's interesting to me is the different status it has come to have in the U.S. and the Pacific in the intervening years. Stateside, it is snubbed as something that poor people eat, while in Hawaii, South Korea and other areas in that region it has been incorporated into the cuisine without ridicule. It seems to me that it is just a different kind of 'cold cut', which formed the basis of many of my childhood sandwiches, at least the ones that weren't peanut butter and jelly.
If you would like to overcome your own internal snob, at least for a day, why not watch the video posted here? At the very least, the host seems like a very nice young man and able demonstrator of cooking a dish that, who knows, might one day save your life...
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I've never actually had the guts to try Spam, although, my dad has always really enjoyed it, of course, he also enjoys canned sardines and oysters, and I have little doubt that he would like Adrian's crispy dried fish find. That said, I prefer to stick with peanut butter and jelly.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with it is that I don't really enjoy ham, in any form. I don't think being gelled in aspic would improve it for me. But why SPAM should be singled out over other processed meats is something of a mystery to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't have it often, but I do enjoy sliced spam once in a while, fried and crispy w/ mustard. As kids we had it sometimes, probably becuse it was affordable. I believe spam was served to the passengers on the recenlty stranded cruiseship. Just watched "The Road", where spam got a nice product placement.
ReplyDeleteI'll take spam over olive loaf anyday.
My problem is SPAM is that it is way too salty. Other than that, it's really just like any cheap ham-block.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I can speak from experience: The Hawai'ians love SPAM, and you see SPAM musubi all over the place
Sean, frying it does seem to enhance it according to our YouTube guy. And I do like ham pretty well with mustard, so that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteLeslie, yes, ham in general is way too salty for me. Thanks for verifying the hearsay with your own Hawaii observations. And see you soon!
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ReplyDeleteWhy should Spam be singled out above other varieties of processed meat? Here's why.
ReplyDelete==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Peter. Yes, in retrospect, its elevation was probably inevitable.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked that no one had invoked Monty Python before I did. I don't like ham, but Sean's simple recipe for Spam fried crispy with mustard sounds good. Maybe I'll try that with some corned beef when my cholestersol is feeling low.
ReplyDeletePeter, I suppose we should first ascertain whether SPAM is good cholesterol, or bad cholesterol.
ReplyDeleteI think I am one of the very few of my generation who enjoyed Monty Python without immediately turning around and committing whole skits to memory.
I was no Monty Python cultist, though I did memorize bits of skits. And Monty Python did produce some good bits.
ReplyDeletePeter, if you memorized bits of skits, you were a cultist.
ReplyDeleteNot that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Those guys were brilliant.
No, I don't think I was a cultist. I would not watch the show often, and I thought the movies that I saw, while containing brilliant bits, made tedious going for a full 90 minutes.
ReplyDeleteSuch memorization as I did is merely a tribute to my mind's ability for sopping up cultural detritus. It was nothing like my memorizing large chunks of "Annie Hall," which I liked so much that I saw it 18 times, for example.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Okay, you're right. If you can criticize the movies, you are outside the cult.
ReplyDeleteAs for Annie Hall, I saw it once, and maybe parts of it on television. For me, that was enough. Although I did like the cinematography, as I do in all his work.
I was reading the credits on some Woody Allen movies at the video store this week. He did work with some good cinematographers, guys like Sven Nykvist.
ReplyDeleteA friend at work yesterday was recommending Shadows and Fog, and it sounded interesting enough that I will put it on my Netflix list.
ReplyDeleteA spam post with a Monty Python reference?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
Adrian, Peter has beaten you to the punch. Mea culpa, already.
ReplyDeletev word=phoot! (Exclamation point added)
I once tried
ReplyDeleteSpam
Horrible stuff.
Tales, that was actually quite an interesting article especially if you read further down. According to it, the original concoction was all pork shoulders and no ham, which Hormel had to add later because the public thought it had ham from the name.
ReplyDeleteI used to love it fried when I was a kid.I seem to rememeber that there was a Spam Appreciation Society(And also a Bourbon Biscuit Appreciation Society and the president was the bloke that played Dr Smith in Lost In Space)
ReplyDeleteDr. Smith? He hardly seems the type.
ReplyDeleteFried or cooked up with eggs definitely seems to be the consensus here. One of my friends has told me that they used to take it on camping trips, which makes a lot of sense.
I really don't think I have ever had it. And this is not because we were gourmands, believe me.