Not much of a story but I went to the Spam Museum in Austin, MN once. It was interesting because it was at the actual Hormel factory and you had to show your ID to the gate guard at the parking lot. It has since moved but I don’t know where. There was also a restaurant across the street that ‘specialized’ in Spam dishes. It was for sale when I went there. I can’t remember if I tried a Spam dish or not. I think I did.
Not a story, but I’ve shocked a lot of fellow campers by slow roasting a can of spam (without the can) over coals and cutting browned slices off to make spam “gyros.” They (usually) can’t believe how good it is.
I had a roommate in grad school from Austin MN. He spoke of the annual “SPAM Days” like a WWI vet remembering his time in the trenches. He said that you could name any recipe in the world, and somebody would bring a SPAM version of it to the festival.
One of my favorite meals on a Hawaiian vacation was in Hana with 3 ingredients purchased at the Hasegawa General Store. We sauteed some turkey spam, green beans and onions, with a little salt and pepper, and enjoyed it on our balcony overlooking the garden. (I guess the location had something to do with how good it was…)
Damn. That actually sounds brilliant.
It really does. Even the wife, who generally loathes Spam thinks it’s a good idea.
My Dad’s old house in Michigan had these cabinets that went the whole height of the very tall kitchen. They were shallow, just making use of the space between the studs and using the cabinet doors instead of sheetrock. It made for a ton of kitchen storage.
He was an excellent chef when he was single, but the moment he’d get married he’d retire from the kitchen and refuse to cook for himself, even when she was out of town.
One time, his second wife went on a business trip, and he then embarrassed her at a dinner party saying that she not only hadn’t cooked ahead for him, she hadn’t even left him a can of SPAM. The step-monster was not to be trifled with. The next day while he was at work she hired a day-worker and went to every grocery store in town. she bought up all the spam she could find and filled one of those floor to ceiling cabinets with over 200 cans of SPAM. 
She had her moments.
Another time I found a treasure trove of Monty Python clips online. I went into my Dad’s Windows settings and replaced all his notification sounds with various clips from the “SPAM!” skit. When he signed in to any software he’d get various forms of “SPAM, sausage eggs pancakes and SPAM?” or whatever. But my favorite was the error message, which screamed “I don’t like SPAM!!” anytime he made a mistake.
Did I mention that Dad is a Vietnam Vet? They will either aggressively love SPAM or aggressively hate it. There’s no in between. My Dad loves the stuff.
I happened to mention Spam to a Russian guy I worked with in Moscow in the '90s. He was born in the US and spent his formative years there, so he knew what it was. When he told me his dad, part of the Soviet Union’s WWII generation, loved Spam, I said it was probably because tons of the stuff were shipped over under Lend–Lease. There are likely still warehouses full of it up in Murmansk.
I liked Spam on Hawai’ian foods. I didn’t worry much. Then I saw this:
Hawaii’s Spam black market blamed for spate of crime - “Tina Yamaki, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, [said] that the thieves aren’t likely hungry [for] $2.50-a-can meat, but are probably targeting the popular Hormel product to sell it on a Spam black market in the Aloha State.”
And this, a bit older:
Commodity ‘spam’ linked to rise in diabetes among American Indians - “…researchers asked about 2.000 Indian participants whether they ate government-provided processed meat. Of those who consumed the most amount product, 85 percent developed diabetes, compared to 44 percent of those who ate the least amount.”
The Spam black market was big in South Korea too but that was 30 years ago. Black markets for killer food FTW! I’ll stick to Evergood pineapple-pork sausages, thanks. But that inspires a question: Where else in the world have Spam black markets thrived?
I feel for you wrt that story about your father.
But as far as SPAM goes, I was forced to eat it for seven days straight one time and to this day, the smell of SPAM really does make me sick. I’m not saying that in the figurative sense. It really and truly causes me to upchuck. I know that everyone has a different opinion about most all kinds of food. But I’ve never been able to understand how people can stand the smell and/or taste of Spam.
As I admitted, I like original spam. I want to try the spit roasted spam gyros, and the baked ham with pineapple and whatnot recipe as well.
WHile I have been known to eat it cold, it really is better warmed somehow.
I have a friend who’s a high-end professional chef. When she found out I’d never had spam, she grilled some for me with pineapple (which she knows I love) and some other accoutrements I don’t fully remember. It was seriously delicious, but she warned me I’d probably not find spam like that elsewhere. I choose to not have it again, and remain with one fond spam memory.