Saturday Silliness - Spam®

I had more than a few comments and Emails about Spam® after I posted on Korean Hometown Restaurant, several of them including one comment from Emily, who authors the wonderful What's For Lunch Food Blog, asked about the Spam® - Hawaii connection. Now I'm not a Food Anthropologist, but I remember a few things about Spam.

Food Anthropologist Rachel Lauden in Her entertaining book The Food of Paradise writes a bit about the history of  Spam® in Hawaii, but more about the perception, attitudes, and different Spam preparations. What little I do know is; in the 1930's Hormel SPiced hAM, became Spam®. The SPiced hAM product itself was first developed as way to market the left over pork shoulder from canned Ham production. So the name Spam®, was basically a marketing tool. The Hawaii history is based around one major event in History, World War II. Because Spam(and other canned meats like Vienna Sausage) requires no refrigeration, it was portable and convenient food for the U.S. Military, who introduced it to Hawaii, and other areas in the world(i.e. Korea). And so Spam® became the equal opportunity food of Hawaii, crossing racial and economic boundaries. After all it's not bland, it's not tough, it's flexible(check out Hawaii's Spam Cookbook) and it goes great with rice! Spam® consumption in Hawaii is somewhere around 4 million cans a year.........

Here are a few entertaining links that delve farther "into" Spam® than I ever could :

History of Spam

Spam Links(no pun intended)

The Amazing and Fabulous Spam Site

Wikpedia - Spam

And one fun book, Spam: A Biography.

Here's something I made recently that I enjoyed. Guess what it is?

What happened was the Missus cut the rounded ends off a block of  Spam®, so I was left with a square block. So I cut a few pieces off, and made Spam® Katsu. But I wasn't finished, I also fried an egg, and warmed up some Japanese Curry, and made me some Spam® Katsu Curry:

It was quite good. We found that breading the Spam®, cut down on the salty flavor. I'll make this again, as soon as my arteries recover.........

Which just goes to show.....Spam® is supposed to be eaten.

Comments

[Jack]

"Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely spam! Wonderful Spam....!"
I'm having fried spam (soaked...can you say marinated and spam in the same sentence?...in mable syrup), eggs and rice today for breakfast! Thanks Kirk!??! :)

[thess]

Hello Kirk, how are your arteries nowadays? :D

Spam is quite popular among the students and office workers back home (Philippines.) I remember my combo box - gheez, that was from primary school 'til college -slices of spam with rice and fried egg was my standard menu, oh and banana ketchup on the side.

i must say your breaded slices looked really yummy.

[Christine D.]

What a nice Spam coincidence! Last night, my dad popped open a can of spam to eat with some baguette. Then i walked into the kitchen because i was gonna eat some kimchi ramen, and i saw the spam and chucked a few pieces into the noodles. Then my stepmom came home, saw the Spam, and ate it with rice.

And today i might be making some kimchi fried rice with...Spam!

[Chubbypanda]

Kirk,

My mouth is watering and my arteries are hardening, all from those pictures. Nice one!

- CP

[Kirk]

Hi Jack - Sounds like a wonderful brunch...cause after eating that you've had all your calories for the day!

Hi Thess - Welcome back - seems like the kitchen remodel is almost done, right? Spam has been mentioned as "Hawaii's soul food", that sounds about right, doesn't it? Spamsilog sounds really good...with Jufran of course!

Hi Christine - How does the saying go...Buy a man a Spam Musubi, and you have fed him lunch, open a can of Spam, and you have fed the Family! LOL! ;o)

Hi CP - OH, no....it's a double whammy!!!

[CharSiuBao]

there's a Spam Lite (low sodium Spam) that has all the tasty flavor with less of the super saltyness. just in case heart attack by Spam isn't the way you want to go.

P.S. - spam goes really well with mangoes...

[Rachel]

I love spam just heated in the microwave and eaten in a slice of bread just folded over it ... ahh the simple pleasures in life.
I stopped eating it when I realised just how umm energy dense it was. (I am trying to avoid saying the b.. word for food, often associated with the d... word ;)) However, joy of joys, the turkey spam is much better for you and the taste is still nice and meaty and salty. Do you have turkey spam over there? We have spam, spam lite, bbq spam, low sodium spam and turkey spam. We also have the promotion here if you send a certain number of labels in you can get caps or t-shirts or a rucksack.

Anyway, I didn't realise I had missed so much yummy food. That spam kimchi fried rice looked very good in your last post but the cold noodles with the frozen stock was just too wierd. Have been working on a few assignments. Miss your food adventures!

[nhbilly]

another name for your meal - heart attack katsu :-) YUM - I love spam

[Kirk]

Hi Rachel - I try and limit my Spam (is it it's own food group) intake, so when I eat Spam, I go for the gusto...no messing around with the other stuff.

Hi Nhbilly - How about Coronary Katsu? ;o)

[Kirk]

Hi CSB - I rarely have Spam...so I'll just stick with the "real thing"....mangos with Spam, now that sounds interesting...like Soy Sauce-Sugar with Spam, and Bagaong with Spam!

[eatdrinknbmerry]

Oooohh, spam-katsu ahah. I remember eating Katsu-ham sandwiches in Japan, but haven't tried spam-katsu. sounds great haha.

[Kirk]

Hi EDBM - Spam Katsu is good stuff...not too often, though!

[Jeff C]

Followed the link Kirk and found this post. Great, two of my favorite things combined to such a great culinary and tasty result.

[Kirk]

Hi Jeff - It is quite tasty..... though it induced cringes in some of my friends.