OMG Spam ramen. I have totally forgotten about it.
I was an 11-year-old boy living in a hotel in Koza, Okinawa, Japan, just outside the gates of Kadena AFB. We were headed back to the States (yaaay!) after my dad’s most recent 4-year stint at Kadena. We’d cleared base housing (yaaay!) but our port call date was still a week away, so we were on the economy.
The Kadena USO was just up the street, so we passed our days there. (Beats watching Japanese daytime TV when you don’t really speak enough Japanese to follow, and it’s all talk shows and something like soap operas anyway.)
The USO’s snack bar sold the best ramen ever made. It wasn’t scratch-made like you might get further downtown from a real ramen shop. But it had all the elements, including negi (green scallion), an egg (cracked raw on top and poached by the hot broth), and… SPAM.
Had them. They are good, but not the best use of Spam IMO. Spam is at its best skillet fried. From there, it can be used in a million ways as listed in this thread. When I was younger and had a physically very demanding job, spam and marmalade sandwiches on toast were a favored breakfast.
Worst use of Spam: my university cafeteria served an abortion they called a Macintosh back in the early 80’s. It was a slice of cheap whitebread, Spam, canned fruit cocktail, and a slice of processed American cheese on top. They ran the whole mess under the broiler just long enough to make the cheese droopy. With cereal and hamburgers available at every meal, I don’t know why people even bothered trying to gag them down. I tried one on a dare and it offended on every gustatory level.
^ I used to cut that stuff on a slicer in a deli after school, and the stench :eek: . I didn’t see how that was similar to the divine Kosher Corned Beef. Illuminate me?
I have cooked the following dish hundreds of times passed down by my mom. I never tell anyone that SPAM is an ingredient and I have thought of starting a catering business making this dish. But first, the best SPAM dish is fried sliced spam between two saltines with beer.
SPAM-balaya [jambalaya] (ingredients listed for 1/2 batch):
Cook any Spanish rice mix as per instructions.
Cube SPAM and begin frying on low heat.
Add chopped onion, red and green peppers.
Do not overcook onions and peppers; they should remain firm.
Add SPAM, onions and peppers to rice mix.
If the economy is good, add 1 lb package of small peeled tail off shrimp.
Add Zataran’s cajun seasoning, a shitload of black and red pepper and salt to taste.
Leave overnight in fridge. Serve the next night so that ingredients have time to mate.
I have cooked this with andouille sausage, but the sausage overwhelms the remaining ingredients. SPAM is perfectly not outstanding and cheap.
Canned meat has that smell and appearance whether it is meant for human consumption or not. Each year, I pressure can venison if I get a deer. Nothing goes in the jars but meat and salt. When I open a jar, it has that alpo/corned beef hash/dinty moore stew/tushonka color and smell. Years back, when I was in the Army we still ate the “old fashioned” c-rations. The most popular one was beef and sliced potatoes in gravy. It had that look and smell.