Virus Alert

[Valithor]

Thanks. I'm not sure which I dislike more, spam or viruses..

[GrrrArg]

Has anyone here actually eaten spam (the tinned meat) .... its absolutely vile.

[SaiFightsMS]

It sure is. Spam has the largest popularity in places where people eat a lot of pork.

[GrrrArg]

I like pork, spam is not pork.

 

An average tin of spam will never have seen a pig

[monkeygirl]

Apparently, most Hawaiians love spam. And all the people at https://www.spamhaiku.com love it, too.

 

As for me...well, I don't think I've ever eaten it before.

[Kumite988]

Stop spamming.

 

 

 

LOL that was lame.

[SaiFightsMS]

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010205.html

 

What is SPAM made of?

 

Mike

 

Lexington, Kentucky

 

 

 

Dear Mike:

 

According to the The Amazing SPAM Home Page, the ingredients of SPAM are as follows:

 

chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added

 

salt (for binding, flavor, and firmness)

 

water (to help in mixing)

 

sugar (for flavor)

 

sodium Nitrite (for color and as a preservative)

 

And here are some other interesting SPAM-related facts to consider:

 

In the United States, 3.8 cans of SPAM are consumed every second.

 

Hawaiians eat an average of four cans of SPAM per person per year (this is the highest SPAM consumption rate per capita in the world).

 

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia eats a SPAM and mayonnaise sandwich three times a week.

 

Nikita Krushchev credited SPAM with the survival of the WWII Russian army. Quothe the Krushchev: "Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army."

 

Any more meaty questions? Try the official site.

 

 

 

Spam isn't pork hey?

[wrestlingkaratechamp]

Spam is good I think. I tasted it on a salad once. Its like strips of this pinkish pork. Why do the Hawaiians eat so much of it?

[monkeygirl]

I forget why they like it so much. All I know is that they do.

[Kumite988]

Check out this link

 

http://www.jsonline.com/entree/cooking/aug01/spam05080201.asp

 

 

 

When I told my daughter I was going to Hawaii, this was the first thing she said to me: "I read somewhere that they eat a lot of Spam in Hawaii."

 

I suspected her comment could mean one of only two things: 1) That she was mad about not being invited along or 2) Hawaiians really do eat an inordinate amount of Spam.

 

I had envisioned beautiful hula girls, pristine beaches, exotic tropical flowers and pina coladas the size of punch bowls, but somehow Spam had not worked its way into the picture.

 

"Really," she insisted.

 

Although suspicious, I was intrigued, and decided I would set out to either prove or dispel this rumor of Hawaiians as Spam-eating creatures.

 

My husband shook his head when I told him of my plans to approach complete Hawaiian strangers about this issue. Would they be offended at the question? After all, there is a definite "Spam stigma" - the jokes, the reputation, the mystery still surrounding what it really is.

 

How do you phrase the question, "Pardon me, but a know-it-all college kid told me that you Hawaiians eat a lot of Spam - is that true?" I thought perhaps I should just forget the whole thing.

 

But once we got to our hotel in Hawaii and found a message that the dog had bitten the dog-sitter shortly after we left; learned that our hotel room was approximately 4 feet from a construction zone; and discovered that Hawaii was home to creatures called geckos that are basically small lizards that like to sneak into people's rooms but you're not allowed to kill them because they bring good luck . . . I thought, what the heck?

 

Everywhere we went in Hawaii, I kept my eyes peeled for Spam. I scrutinized our dinner menus, but found not a single listing of a Spam entree. The days slid by and there was not a shred of Spam to be seen, and even after several mai tais I had not found the courage to verbalize my query.

 

On our final day on the island of Oahu, knowing that time was running out, I dropped my husband off at the golf course and, with renewed determination, drove off in search of the Spam truth.

 

I drove north as far as the ocean would allow me, which brought me to the small oceanfront town of Hale'iwa, where I noticed a small mall with a grocery store. The moment had arrived. Logic dictated that evidence of what Hawaiians like to eat would be stocked at the local food market. If I found not so much as one lonely can on the shelf, I would figure I was just a "Spam fool."

 

I drove into the parking lot and, trying not to look suspicious, moseyed past the dozens of varieties of dried octopus, cuttlefish and assortments of dried seaweed, then wandered aimlessly through the store until I came to the likely aisle. Suddenly, there before my bulging eyes, was not one, not two, not three cans of the elusive compressed meat, but no fewer than 768 cans!

 

The Spam went on as far as the eye could see; eight cases long stacked four cases high, nearly filling the entire aisle.

 

And if there didn't happen to be enough cans of Spam to suit you that day, there were dozens of imitators - key-entry canned luncheon meats of all varieties: Libby's Luncheon Loaf, Armour "Treet," Hereford Luncheon Meat, and nine different brands of oblong-shaped corned beef. Cases upon cases of each. I had found the mother lode of processed, rectangular meat.

 

And as I stood there gazing upon the cans of Spam and its brethren, my next question was, "Why?" Why do Hawaiians eat so much Spam? (Why I needed to know was also a mystery.)

 

I approached the check-out counter and after determining that the young woman behind it was neither overly sensitive nor violent, I forced myself to speak up. "I heard Hawaiians eat a lot of Spam," I stammered. "Is that true?" She smiled a genuine smile and said, "Yes, that's true. There's a deli across the way that sells Spam musubis."

 

It sounded like a car made out of Spam.

 

I walked into the deli and scanned the menu behind the counter. I spied a half dozen Spam items, including the "Spam musubis," which turned out not to be a car. I asked the clerk to tell me what it really was.

 

"It's Spam surrounded by rice wrapped in seaweed," she said with a large, friendly smile. She offered me one to try for free.

 

As if by magic two young Hawaiian women entered the deli and walked to the counter where I stood. "Do you have any Spam left?" asked one of them. It was official; I had entered some mysterious Spam warp.

 

"Why do you eat Spam?" I blurted.

 

"Everybody eats Spam in Hawaii," she said with a grin. She was a local named Kelley, and not only was she not offended, she was proud.

 

"Majorly!" her friend, Kryss, concurred.

 

"People back home think of it as dog food," she said cheerfully.

 

Just then the deli owner, Deann, came back with my Spam musubis, and a container full of other Hawaiian delicacies, all complimentary. According to Deann and her sister, Janelle, every Saturday morning the deli serves Spam for breakfast. "We have three choices of meat with our eggs but most people go with Spam," said Deann.

 

Other Spam dishes she described included cut-up Spam and fried noodles, and the popular Spam, mayo and egg sandwich. "Every day they have to have their Spam," she smiled, referring to her fellow Hawaiians.

 

"Spam is very good!" exclaimed Kelley as she bit into a slice.

 

After such gracious and disarming hospitality I lost all inhibitions and talked to more of the local townsfolk about Spam. One woman told me that she believed Spam became popular in Hawaii because it's a non-perishable food that people can survive on during hurricanes. "It's the first thing people grab when there's a hurricane," she said.

 

Even Hormel, the creator and maker of Spam, based in Austin, Minn., is not quite certain how Spam gained its popularity in Hawaii. According to a Hormel spokesman: "The nearest we can figure is that the popularity grew during World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many Hawaiians worked for the military and got acquainted with Spam. It fit in quite well with their Oriental-style cuisine and needed no refrigeration.

 

"In addition, all ships were put into wartime service," he said. "Because of limited land space and no shipping, their love of Spam grew and is still one of their most popular foods."

 

According to Hormel, Hawaii consumes the most Spam luncheon meat per capita, with residents eating a whopping 5.3 cans of Spam per person last year.

 

Although my mission to uncover the truth about Spam-eaters in Hawaii had come to an end, a more important truth had been uncovered during my search, which is the kindness of the Hawaiian people, unlike anywhere I have seen.

 

And to my fellow mainlanders who may not be Spam enthusiasts, I can say with confidence - if you don't like Spam, you probably won't like it wrapped in seaweed, either.

 

Luckily there are plenty of Hawaiian Spam dishes that don't involve seaweed or baby octopus. The recipe below is adapted from a prize-wining recipe taken from the "50th Anniversary Best of Our Favorite Recipes" cookbook from the Island of Maui.