Confessions of a Sarcastic Mind « lao_ocean

Today, I figured that I'd come clean. I think everyone has quirky, unmentionable things they do, and would not readily share with others. Mine has to do with food. I know it's a joke among many people, but I'm talking about SPAM. You know, the lunchean meat in a can? I'm here to proclaim, I LIKE SPAM. It's taken some time to publically come out. It's one of those things that you know is not cool to eat, like cow instestine, but you wonder why? Why does everyone shun it so? So I made a purchase while in university, while my roommate was away for the weekend. Hmmm, the cashier at Safeway doesn't look at me strangely. I went home and tried it out. It wasn't bad! (Mikey likes it! He really likes it!) You may be one of those "you actually eat that stuff?" people, but when's the last time you had some? Do you only make fun of it, or have you actually tried it? Personally, I like to cut up the pieces in 0.5 cm slices, then pan fried it until it's slightly crispy and brown. It actually does look like square pieces of ham, then. I eat it with rice and pre-salted seaweed. The bland ricea and the salty "spiced ham" provide a nice balance of flavor.

Spam

Spam History:

Hormel Spiced Ham got off to a slightly rocky start. Other meatpackers began to introduce their own canned luncheon meats, and Hormel lost its controlling share of the market. Soon, however, they came up with a cunning plan to rectify this situation - they would give Hormel's luncheon meat a truly catchy name. Toward this end, they offered $100 for a suitable appellation. The winning name was, of course, ''SPAM'', and a legend was born.

Ingredients:

Chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added.
Salt (for binding, flavour, and firmness)
Water (to help in mixing)
Sugar (for flavour)
Sodium Nitrite (for colour and as a preservative)

(Yum yum!)

Nifty Spam Trivia!

If all the cans of Spam ever eaten were put end-to-end, they would circle the globe at least ten times.
In the U.S. alone, 3.8 cans of Spam "are consumed every second"(assuming SPAM is eaten 24 hours a day, 365.25 days a year).
Residents of Hawai'i eat an average of four cans of SPAM per person per year, more than in any other place on Earth
By 1959, a billion cans of SPAM had been sold. The two billion mark was hit in 1970, followed by three billion in 1980, four billion in 1986, and five billion in 1993. That's a lot of SPAM!
In Korea, SPAM is sold in stylish presentation gift boxes of nine cans each. SPAM stolen from army PXs can be found on the Korean black market. And there are Korean imitations called Lo-Spam, Dak, Plumrose, and Tulip, to ensure that no one need go without.
Nikita Krushchev once credited SPAM with the survival of the WWII Russian army. ''Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army,'' he said.
SPAM is sold in over 99% of U.S. grocery stores.
The SPAM luncheon meat trademark is registered in 111 countries.
Over 60 million people in the U.S. eat SPAM.
SPAM is made in two U.S. locations - Austin, Minnesota, and Fremont, Nebraska - and seven other countries: England, Australia, Denmark, Phillipines, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.
In 1989, the U.S. armed forces bought 3.3 million pounds of SPAM.
Over 141 million cans of SPAM are sold worldwide each year.

To end things, I wanted to add a haiku I wrote:

Pink, tender canned ham
Glistening with salty gel
I procaim, "Spam rocks!"

Posted at: 1:45:57 am

mr kim
November 19, 2004 07:01 PM PST

I love spam too. Your post on it inspired me to eat spam eggs and rice for breakfast. Oh yea I like it with kimchi though.

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