It didn’t start until after we left Hawaii so many years ago, so I’m psyched. And it’s right here in my own backyard of Waikiki. I think I’ll order me some spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam, only with spam instead of the baked beans.
I have no problem with the concept of “spiced ham,” and I’ve even bought it occasionally freshly sliced as a cold cut, at a deli counter. But ham in a can worries me.
I eat tuna and sardines and other seafood out of cans, but never anything like corned beef hash. Or Spam.
I hope it’s a great as the Maui Onion Festival. I especially liked onion onion onion onion onion onion onion onion onion onion onion onion poi onion onion onion onion onion and onion (poi optional).
Spam is the state dish! Introduced I think during WWII. Spamburgers are quite common. I loves me some spam. But you have to cook it. I can’t imagine eating it straight out of the can.
We often had spam when I was a youngster in the early 60s. My mom was a Depression era/WWII veteran who grew up in New England, so was not used to eating real food (or if there was real food it was boiled until tasteless). Spam was just one of the many artificial food-like substances we ate as kids. Right up there with the Velveeta cheese!
I know. I first heard about Spam in From Here to Eternity (the novel) as part of the famous “You WILL prepare hot food for the men on patrol even though it’s three in the morning” scene. They got grilled Spam and cheese sandwiches, possibly as retribution from the sleepy cook.
I guess if you got stationed at Pearl Harbor, you learned to enjoy Spam.
Do they serve a Lobster Thermidor à Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provençale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pâté, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam? If so, I’m all in.
(Spam, btw, is good eats on a camping trip. Fries up nice in the pan, but you don’t have to worry about how hot you got it…)
I did not until I was about 35 years old. My Mother, born in 1947, remembered it at the very end of WWII rationing in England. I think her mother taught her it was subpar food. That is how I viewed it as a kid.
Anyway, we enjoy it now. My kids like to have it diced up into squares. We mix it with rice and seaweed.
Indeed it is. Once again I’ll mention dad’s SPAM[sup]®[/sup] salad sandwiches. Grind the SPAM[sup]®[/sup], mix in Miracle Whip (I’ll explain) and sweet pickle relish, chill, serve on soft white bread. Basically it’s just ham salad, only made with SPAM[sup]®[/sup]. OK, the Miracle Whip. SPAM[sup]®[/sup] is salty and fatty. If you mixed it with mayonnaise, you’d be adding fat and salt to salt and fat. Miracle Whip is a sweet dressing, so when you add it to SPAM[sup]®[/sup] its sweetness counteracts the saltiness and fattiness of the meat. I’m sure dad never thought about it, because he always used Miracle Whip on everything, but the sweet/savoury thing is well established. Dad had to coax people into tasting their first SPAM[sup]®[/sup] salad sandwich. Once they did, they always asked for more.
SPAM[sup]®[/sup] is a versatile meat, too. Musubi has been mentioned. Or you can slice it for a cold sandwich. Or fry it for a warm sandwich. Fry it and eat it with eggs. Cut it into cubes and put it in an omelette, or in mac’n’cheese, or fried rice. Make a Hawaiian pizza. You can even score the top, put whole cloves in the intersections of the cuts, glaze it with mustard and brown sugar, and bake it like a canned ham.
I’m not a Spam addict, but I do have several tins of chorizo Spam on hand. I like Spam. Potted meats were a staple of my parents Polish pantry, so I grew up on that kind of stuff (in addition to real homemade deli products sold at the local Eastern European groceries.) It’s all good to me!