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SPAM: Spiced Ham. Arguably the planet's most recognizable portmanteau
word (closely followed by "....widget" and "infomercial'), and certainly
one of its most popular foodstuffs. More that 5 billion cans have been
produced, and more importantly, consumed since the Hormel Foods
Corporation introduced the product in 1937. This year more than 60
million Americans will eat SPAM, mostly because they like it.
As recent D-Day commemorations showed, SPAM sticks in the public
consciousness perhaps most enduringly as war fare, but those who believe
the common meat to be long past the best years of its life are mistaken.
In fact, several recent developments have come from a larger and
passionate SPAM subculture. While there is no national fan club (or
support group) per se, SPAM lovers regularly exchange, often
electronically, news about, recipes for, and panegyrics to the
cameo-pink luncheon meat. To the astonishment of Hormel, its mail order
business in SPAM giftware, introduced just before Christmas, has
exceeded all expectations, and may soon expand to department stores.
SPAM sales have risen consistently over the past three years, and while
Hormel officials won't reveal SPAM's exact contribution to annual
profits, they will admit that the company's total annual sales exceed
$2.8 billion.
SPAM is huge. Ask the Smithsonian. Ask Margaret Thatcher. Ask David
Letterman. SPAM is on line. Need we say more?
If so, here are your SPAM questions answered!
Q: What is a common misconception about SPAM?
A: That it contains meat by-products ranging from the unsavory to the
unspeakable. (Those lips, those eyes.) A base canard. SPAM is pork
shoulder, ham, salt, sugar, and sodium nitrite.
Q: Did the person who named SPAM earn millions?
A: No. Kenneth Daigneau, an actor and the brother of a Hormel executive,
received only $100 as a winner of a meat-naming contest held in 1936.
According to corporate lore, Jay C. Hormel, son of the company's
founder, wanted to find a good use for several thousand pounds of
surplus pork shoulder. He cooked up a canned blend known as spiced ham
lower case, no little r in a circle. When competing meatpackers began
marketing similar products, creating a catchy brand name became
imperative. Hence the contest. Had Daigneau chosen to emphasize the pork
shoulder rather than the ham aspect of the product, we might all be
eating SPORSH.
Q: Why was SPAM drafted for World War II?
A: Because it was nutritious, filling, and shelf stable, says Hormel.
Perhaps the top brass thought a strategically carried can had more
bullet-stopping potential than a similarly placed Bible. The British
Government wanted to honor the tinned soldier by holding a SPAM-fritter
cooking contest during recent D-Day celebrations. Veterans' groups
criticized the event as 'trivial.' But was that really fair to the food
that fueled the Normandy invasion?
Q: What does Nikita Khrushchev have to say about SPAM?
A: In "Khrushchev Remembers," Khrushchev remembers: "We had lost our
most fertile, food-bearing lands. Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been
able to feed our army."
Q: What about Margaret Thatcher?
A: She recalls it as a "wartime delicacy," shared on Boxing Day 1943
with friends and family. " I can quite vividly remember we opened a tin
of SPAM luncheon meat. We had some lettuce and tomatoes and peaches, so
it was SPAM and salad."
Q: Where do folks buy the most SPAM?
A: Hawaii, Alaska, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama. Hawaiians lead the
nation in SPAM consumption, putting away 4/3 million cans a year. Among
the 50 foreign countries where SPAM is sold, the United Kingdom and
South Korea are the largest markets.
Q: Why is SPAM so popular in Hawaii?
A: The military brought SPAM to the islands, its novelty imparted
cachet, and World War II food rationing firmly entrenched the SPAM
habit, says Suzan Harada, who heads a program in Hawaiian culture at
Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu. "This was a period when having
Western things was really important. Even if you had access to fresh
pork and chicken, being able to afford canned food showed status." Now
it's tradition.
Q: What about Alaska?
A: "SPAM is cheap, convenient, and delicious, and it doesn't freeze,"
says Mr. Whitekeys, pianist for Mr. Whitekeys and the Fabulous Spamtones
and owner of Mr. Whitekey's Fly by Night Club in Spenard, Alaska, where
the menu prominently features SPAM. "It gets pretty stiff, but it
doesn't freeze."
(A spokeswoman at Hormel insists that she herself has frozen a slab of
SPAM.)
Q: If you wire a can of SPAM to the exhaust manifold of your snowmobile
when the temperature is 55 degrees below zero, how many miles must you
travel before the meat is perfectly browned?
A: Thirty-five miles, according to the team of snowmobilers that breaks
trail for the annual Iditarod Dogsled Race.
Q: When Vernon Tejas made his solo winter ascent of Mount McKinley in
1988, did he take a picture of himself with a SPAM can at the
summit?
A: Of course.
Q: How does the selection of SPAM-based dishes at a typical restaurant
in Hawaii or Alaska compare with the selection at the Green Midget cafe
made famous by Monty Python?
A: The Ala Moana Poi Bowl Honolulu serves SPAM musubi (a sort of
oversize sushi) and SPAM, eggs, and rice. Mr. Whitekey's Fly by Night in
Spenard, Alaska, just outside Anchorage, offers Cajun SPAM, SPAM nachos
and specials like pasta with SPAM and sun-dried tomatoes in cream sauce.
The Green Midget cafe's bill of fare included egg and SPAM; egg, bacon
and SPAM; egg, bacon, sausage and SPAM; SPAM, bacon, sausage and SPAM;
SPAM, egg, SPAM, SPAM, bacon and SPAM; SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, egg and SPAM;
SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, baked beans, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, and
SPAM; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished
with truffle pat
, brandy, and a fried egg on top and SPAM.
Q: Did an overzealous Hormel lawyer ever go after the British comedy
troupe?
A: No, but an overzealous Hormel lawyer did once send a cease-and-desist
order to the Fabulous Spamtones. Whitekeys subsequently learned that the
lawyer wasn't with the company long. Hormel executives remain haunted,
however, by fears of generification. They think that the two scariest
words in the English language are Xerox and Kleenex.
Q: How can you get a free plate of SPAM cuisine at the Fly by Night
Club?
A: purchase a bottle of Dom Perignon and your SPAM is on the house.
Q: Are there many SPAM-related festivals and gatherings throughout the
nation?
A: You bet. Sixty-eight state and regional fairs hold Hormel-sanctioned
SPAM recipe contests. SPAM Jamboree, held every Fourth of July weekend
in Austin, Minn., is the only SPAM shindig Hormel officially
sponsors.
The company looks benignly, however, on the annual SPAMorama in
Austin, Texas, the SPAM cook-off in Maui, and the SPAM carving contests
held annually in Seattle. SPAM has also been suggested as the subject
for the fourth annual Smithsonian Conference on Stuff, to be held this
spring. (The 1994 Conference dealt with marshmallow.)
Q: Are beloved cult novelists ever judges in the Seattle SPAM carving
contest?
A: Yes; this year the panel included Tom Robbins. The winning sculpture
was called "Nude Descending a Staircase." Among previous winners were
works representing SPAMhenge and SPAMmy Wynette. "The idea came to me in
a dream," says Ruby Montana, a founder of the contest. "SPAM is a
humorous and carvable medium and serves a useful purpose in that
form."
Q: What interesting use for SPAM was suggested by David Letterman?
A: SPAM on a rope, for snacking in the shower.
Q: What interesting use for SPAM was suggested by Hormel employees and
used as a T-shirt slogan after a bitter yearlong strike that ended in
1986?
A: "Cram your SPAM." Members of Meatpackers' Local P-9 walked out of the
Hormel's Austin plant when the company cut wages and benefits despite
high profits. Pitting supporters of the local against workers who sided
with the national union, the strike was the subject of the Oscar-winning
1990 documentary "American Dream," directed by Barbara Kopple.
Q: Is it true that in South Korea, SPAM is a gift as prized as jewelry
or premium whisky?
A: Yes.
Q: Where can a person buy gifts with a SPAM motif closer to home?
A: From the Hormel Foods Gift Center catalogue, which features SPAM-logo
T-shirts, watches, sweatsuits, hats, boxer shorts, fanny packs, mugs,
golf balls, magnets, sunshades, windsocks, and more.
Q: Can brides register for SPAMware at the Hormel Gift Center?
A: Sorry, no; Hormel just doesn't have the staff. But according to Mary
Harris, who took the order, this spring a Florida woman bought SPAM
underwear for all the groomsmen in her wedding party.
Q: What's the best-selling item in the catalogue?
A: The classic T-shirt, with the word SPAM in yellow on a field of
blue.
Q: Have customers suggested additions to the catalogue?
A: One woman requested lingerie, another perfume. "She didn't want it to
smell like SPAM, just to be called SPAM," explained Harris.
Q: Any other gift items Hormel should consider?
A: Well, at the Long's Drugstore chain in Honolulu, you can buy a musubi
press that will mold a mound of rice into the shape of a SPAM can.
Q: Which is stronger, SPAM or supernatural forces?
A: SPAM. In Hawaii, it's considered bad luck to carry pork in any form
over the Pali Highway, the mountainous main route from Honolulu to the
other side of Oahu. But this doesn't deter the suppliers of SPAM. "We
know for a fact that the drivers don't alter their course because SPAM's
on the truck; to do that would triple their driving time," says Hoagy
Gamble, president of L. H. Gamble, one of the state's largest food
brokers and Hormel's representative since 1950. "But there hasn't been
any trouble. I think it has something to do with the integrity of the
container; the can keeps all that wonderful pork sealed up nice and
tight and deflects bad luck."
Q: Does anyone have a SPAM license plate?
A: Chuck Hudson, a retired graphic designer in Virginia Beach, VA, whose
Isuzu Trooper plate reads MMSPAM.
Q: Has anyone ever Spaminized a car?
A: Yes, Lew Cady, a Denver copywriter, at the SPAMposium, a 1983
national gathering of 33 SPAMophiles who delivered scholarly papers and
gave demonstrations, including making explosives from SPAM. "It rained,"
recalls Hudson, a participant, "and that sucker really beaded up."
Q: Does Chuck Hudson put his money where his mouth is?
A: Indeed. he bought Hormel stock and "it suddenly took off. My
stockbroker said, 'What do you know that I don't?'" the broker's theory
is that after Eastern Europe shrugged off the yoke of Communism, the
best Polish hams were no longer exported. "And as soon as Polish ham
stayed home," says Hudson, "stock in Hormel, which is the second-best
ham in the world, went up."
Q: Does SPAM make good bait?
A: Ann Kondo Corum, author of "Hawaii's SPAM Cookbook," recommends it
highly.
Q: What are some really cool SPAM recipes, besides bait?
A: Corum's book covers everything from SPAM chowder to SPAM Fu Young.
The Hormel folks suggest SPAM salad cones, made with tortillas. Hearts
of SPAM is Lew Cady's specialty.
Q: What kind of wine goes best with SPAM?
A: A Riesling or gewrztraminer. "Both tend to be fruity and slightly
sweet, qualities that go well with ham," explains John Osborne, the
buyer for Astor Wines and Spirits in Manhattan.
Q: How many times a week does Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia enjoy
a SPAM sandwich with mayo on white bread?
A: Three, by his own accounting.
Q: What's the buzz on the SPAMnet?
A: A recent peek at Prodigy's SPAM Exchange yielded a recipe for S'PAM
S'mores and some household hints. (Confidential to Helen: SPAM
purportedly makes good furniture polish, and it can also be used to keep
condensation off the bathroom mirror when showering.) Someone calling
himself SPAMurai just got back from Maui and suspects that Hawaiian SPAM
is a tad darker than the mainland variety.
Q: How do mental health professionals explain the enduring appeal of
SPAM?
A: "SPAM is a happy thing to organize around," David Levitsky, professor
of nutrition and psychology at Cornell University. "It doesn't cause
harm, gives a sense of identity, and as with any other shared interest,
brings people together. Like other foods that originated in a culture of
poverty - for example, chicken soup and chopped liver were brought from
Europe - SPAM helped people survive difficult times."
Q: Is SPAM a cruel muse?
A: Jack Collom, a poet from boulder, Colo., and the winner of two
national Endowments for the Arts, doesn't think so. Here are a couple of
his SPAM inspired acrostic poems.
Suddenly, masked hombres seized
Petunia Pig
And
Made her into a sort of dense Jell-O.
Somehow the texture, out of nowhere
Produces a species of
Atavistic anomie, a
Melancholy memory of "food."