A professor of mine once told me that the inhabitants of the state of Hawaii consume more spam than the other 49 states COMBINED! I have tried to locate some facts to support this, but it has not been an easy task. Any thoughts?
Cecil talks about thishere (be sure to read the second column on the page).
And if you’re in the Austin, Minnesota area, you can visit the SPAM Museum!!
I’ve been to the new one and the old one (which used to be located in a strip mall south of town)… it’s… just… mindnumbing.
Spam is wildly popular in the western Pacific. My husband has a cookbook over 300 pages long that is NOTHING but Spam recipes.
<gag> <ack><choke>
Indeed they do, I had a roomate who was from Hawaii and she used to make spam musubi (sp?) (spam with rice wrapped in seaweed), mmm, tasty. Even McDonalds is test marketing SPAM products in Hawaii
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/stories/2002/06/10/daily22.html
I think the popularity dates back to WWII and just stuck as kind of a favorite Hawaiian food. Link below to some fun facts about SPAM. I actually thought SPAM stood for specially packaged army meat, but i am wrong.
http://library.louisville.edu/owl/2000-04/lifestyle.htm
a snippet from the ode to SPAM:
"…Oh SPAM™! Oh SPAM™! Gourmet delight!
My food by day, my dreams by night.
To carve, to slice, to dice you up -
pureed in a blender and sipped from a cup.
What shining deity from Olympus knelt
down to the earth and hog butt smelt?
Creating then man’s eternal desire
for swine entrails congealed by fire.
On some corporate farm, a pig has died.
Eyes, tongue, and snout end up inside
that cube of SPAM™ hidden in the can
I now hold in my trembling hand…"
Dunno, it looks like she has her facts straight.
Anecdotally, I believe I (a HI transplant) was personally responsible for 80% of Los Angeles’ Spam consumption while I was going to school there. But maybe that’s just me. 
And upon reading more of that page, I must say it is most appropriately named.
Mmmmmmmmm Spam…
I love Spam - always have.
feh! If you’re in Austin, Texas, you can attend the Spamarama!
I wish I knew what happened to my copy of that book about Spam. Then I could find the actual recipie for Lobster Thermidor aux Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and Spam that some top chef developed.
We just had a huge Spamfest in Waikiki last week. Shut down Kalakaua and had a massive block party with all these pavillions selling spam related goods. Lots of fun.
We used to make money for field trips by making and selling spam musubis to the rest of the school. At 50¢ a pop for a large one we’d be rolling in dough. Good stuff.
Also, don’t forget that SPAM is (realitvely) cheap, and will keep awhile even in Hawai’i’s climate, unlike regular meat.
I never did pick up the taste for it, despite living in Hawai’i for nearly a decade.
<< Spam, spam, spam! >>
When in Anchorage, Alaska, visit the Fly-By-Night Club, home of Mr. Whitekeys and the Spamtones.
From a taste point of view, the only real problem with Spam is that it is too salty. But at the right time and in the right place (scrambled eggs and spam around a campfire), Spam is just fine.
I recall my kindergarten class in Hawaii:
To accompany our discussion (or whatever) of the Dr. Seuss book, we made Green Eggs and SPAM.
“I do not like them, SPAM-I-Am…”
Read the ingredients on the can label. “Mechanically seperated chicken” . . . is that road kill ?
If that’s all that’s holding you back from tucking into SPAM goodness, then know that Hormel also markets a low-sodium version with 25% less salt than the Pacific Ocean.
Joy!
We actually have specialized tools for making SPAM musubi. They can be purchased at any large supermarket here. Yes! SPAM musubi molds, for the perfect SPAM musubi experience! The mold consists of a rectangular plastic frame about three inches high that PERFECTLY MATCHES the dimensions of a slice of SPAM, and a lid that fits inside the frame. To make the musubi, you lay a sheet of nori under the mold, pile in a big scoop of steaming hot white Japanese rice in the frame, and use the lid to compact the rice into a nice starchy brick. Then you extrude the rice from the mold, place the SPAM on top it, and wrap the whole thing up in the nori.
BTW, the SPAM in SPAM musubis is frequently glazed with sugar, mirin, and SOY SAUCE, and I’ve seen SPAM musubis where the rice has been seasoned with furikake, which is a topping mixture of shaved nori, crumbled dried fish, dehydrated egg yolks, and SALT or MSG, or with tsukudani, which is a wet paste of nori and SOY SAUCE. Hormel! If you’re reading this post could you PLEASE JUST START SELLING US SPAM WITH 200% MORE SODIUM already so we could stop doing all this extra work to get it to taste even saltier?!
Looking back at what I’ve written, it becomes obvious that I have not mentioned the word SPAM enough. [dons Viking helmet] SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAMMITY SPAM…
Screw Spam. I wanna know where Hawaii ranks in consumption of Vienna sausages.
Can’t find any figures at the moment, but they’re popular here too. A Hawaiian (kanaka maoli, I mean, not just a resident of the state) co-worker of mine also mentioned that luncheon meat (as opposed to SPAM) is also a favorite at big family gatherings.
Do not even get me started on other local food practices like smushing up rice, tuna, and mayonnaise. 
I am going to start substituting the phrase “all the spam in Hawaii” for “all the tea in China” at every available opportunity.
I once saw Paul Prudhomme at Spamarama in Austin. He was so fat he had to get around in a motorized cart. That man loves food!