It may be worth noting that Spam originated in (and is still made in) Minnesota.
That’s the reason I mentioned SPAM, since the Hormel plant and HQ is in Austin Minnesota, about 40 miles from where I live. It’s also the home to the SPAM Museum, where the famous Monty Python sketch is played on a continuous loop. When my brother brought his teenage kids from Pennsylvania to Minnesota for the first time, it was the only place his daughter insisted on going to.
“Funeral bread” sounds like something ghastly from one of those cheap cookbooks my mother would pick up at church sales. I’d rather have a good hamburger or tuna hot dish made with Campbell’s soup any day.
If it wasn’t for Spam, the Allies might have lost World War II!
I know a different version of this. We never called it Funeral Bread, though. White bread spread with cheese whiz, covered in crushed Ruffles potato chips. We had them many times at wedding and baby showers. I know, sounds weird, but they’re really good.
I have relatives in northern Minnesota that I visited quite regularly, they, nor I, have ever heard of it.
From the looks of it, in my area (northern Iowa) we would call it an Italian (FKA as a guinea) grinder with some extra stuff added.
I once worked at a pizza joint in St Paul that offered Dago sausage (ground beef mixed with garlic and hot pepper flakes) as a topping.
Follow-up on the St. Paul sandwich (a St. Louis specialty) — it’s a real thing, and likely to be available at any random Chinese carry-out joint in the St Louis area.
For me, the selling points are mayonnaise, dill pickles, and being half the price of an order of shrimp fried rice. My favorite part of a fast food burger is hitting the dill pickles, I like the taste of mayo, and I like finding a menu bargain. The slight crunch of the egg foo yung is also pleasant. My guess is it’s not a huge seller, but obviously does well enough to stay on the menus.
About South American sandwiches from Minnesota I know nothing.
I have decided, in the name of science, to make a pot of South American filling myself. I spent about $45 on ingredients at the store tonight. Had to go to two stores, actually - the grocery store where I work doesn’t sell endive, and I’m using tomatillos since green tomatoes aren’t available around here at all. I’ll be using the recipe from the food blog I linked in the OP, halved, and since quality Italian bread is hard to find around here, I’ll be using sourdough (the kind that comes in a round loaf with the super-big slices in the middle) instead.
I will be making it tomorrow evening and shall report my findings.
I have now prepared a pot of South American filling. It was a six-hour affair and I made an utter mess of my kitchen in the process.
As it turns out, I need a bigger food processor. The tiny 1-quart one that I have isn’t up to the task of mincing salt pork and I had to dice it by hand. It didn’t render the way I wanted it to and I wound up with big unappetizing pieces of pork fat floating in the mix, which I mostly picked out with my spatula as it cooked down. I think I might use pancetta instead if I were to make it again in the future.
After I first got all the ingredients blended and into the pot, it tasted bland and uninspiring. The flavor fortunately intensified as it cooked down. I wound up adding a generous amount of salt and pepper, as well as a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. Once I had reduced it to a spread (and cooked ALL of the color out of the green veggies that had gone into it), I added the parsley and endive and spread it on some toasted sourdough.
Verdict: It’s pretty good! It has a very intense umami flavor. The tomato flavor is perhaps a little too heavy, but the late addition of parsley and endive adds some bitterness that counters it nicely. It’s very rich and dense, and I barely managed to finish the single sandwich I made for myself because of how overpowering it was.
It definitely needs more seasoning. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a Midwest recipe lacks seasoning. Perhaps some oregano and red chili flakes, or a bit of chili powder to up the spiciness.
Overall - needs a little more oomph, but it’s very dense and filling and definitely an umami bomb. I shall have to experiment to see if I can get improve on it.
That’s so many tomatillos! About 6-8 (plus a couple chiles) is good for a blender of salsa.
The original recipe calls for 4 pounds! I halved the entire recipe and used two.
I don’t know if I’ll make this again, because it’s very time-consuming and even with a half-recipe it still makes more than I can realistically use. I’m gonna freeze some of the leftovers. I gave some to my mother and she really liked it.