Spam (food)


Spam is a brand of canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation. It was introduced by Hormel in 1937 and gained popularity worldwide after its use during World War II. By 2003, Spam was sold in 41 countries on six continents and trademarked in over 100 countries. Spam's basic ingredients are pork with ham added, salt, water, modified potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. Natural gelatin is formed during cooking in its tins on the production line. Many have raised concerns over Spam's nutritional attributes, in large part due to its high content of fat, sodium, and preservatives.
It has become the subject of a number of appearances in pop culture, notably a Monty Python sketch which repeated the name many times, leading to its name being borrowed for unsolicited electronic messages, especially email.

History

Spam was introduced by Hormel on July 5, 1937. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America states that the product was intended to increase the sale of pork shoulder which was not a very popular cut. Ken Daigneau, the brother of a company executive, won a $100 prize that year in a competition to name the new item. Hormel claims that the meaning of the name "is known by only a small circle of former Hormel Foods executives", but popular beliefs are that the name is an abbreviation of "spiced ham".
The difficulty of delivering fresh meat to the front during World War II saw Spam become a ubiquitous part of the U.S. soldier's diet. It became variously referred to as "ham that didn't pass its physical", "meatloaf without basic training", and "Special Army Meat". Over of Spam were purchased by the military before the war's end.
During World War II and the occupations which followed, Spam was introduced into Guam, Hawaii, Okinawa, the Philippines, and other islands in the Pacific. Immediately absorbed into native diets, it has become a unique part of the history and effects of U.S. influence in the Pacific islands.
As a consequence of World War II rationing and the Lend-Lease Act, Spam also gained prominence in the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher later referred to it as a "wartime delicacy". In addition to increasing production for the U.K., Hormel expanded Spam output as part of Allied aid to the similarly beleaguered Soviet Union. In his memoir Khrushchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev declared: "Without Spam we wouldn't have been able to feed our army." Throughout the war, countries ravaged by the conflict and faced with strict food rations came to appreciate Spam.
The billionth can of Spam was sold in 1959, the seven billionth can was sold in 2007, and the eight billionth can was sold in 2012.

International usage

United States and territories

Domestically, Spam's chief advantages were affordability, accessibility, and extended shelf life. Statistics from the 1990s say that 3.8 cans of Spam were consumed every second in the United States, totaling nearly 122 million cans annually. It became part of the diet of almost 30% of American households, perceived differently in various regions of the country. It is also sometimes associated with economic hardship because of its relatively low cost.
Spam that is sold in North America, South America, and Australia is produced in Austin, Minnesota and in Fremont, Nebraska. Austin, Minnesota also had a restaurant with a menu devoted exclusively to Spam, called "Johnny's SPAMarama Menu".

Hawaii

Spam is especially popular in the state of Hawaii, where residents have the highest per capita consumption in the United States. Its perception there is very different from on the mainland. Hawaiians sometimes call it "Portagee Steak".
A popular local dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, where cooked Spam is placed atop rice and wrapped in a band of nori, a form of onigiri.
Varieties of Spam are found in Hawaii that are unavailable in other markets, including Honey Spam, Spam with Bacon, and Hot and Spicy Spam.
Hawaiian Burger King restaurants began serving Spam in 2007 to compete with the local McDonald's chains. In Hawaii, Spam is so popular that it is sometimes referred to as "The Hawaiian Steak". There is even an annual Spam-themed festival on the island of Oahu that takes place every spring, known as the "Waikiki Spam Jam". Local chefs and restaurants compete to create new Spam-themed dishes, which are then sold in a massive street fair on Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki.
In 2017, Hawaii was plagued by a rash of thefts of Spam. Spam had long been a target of thieves in Hawaii, but the magnitude of the thefts ramped up, with incidents in which multiple cases of Spam were stolen at once. Local retailers believe organized crime was involved. This came alongside increases in thefts of some other retail goods, such as corned beef and liquor. The president of the retail merchants of Hawaii attributed the rise in retail thefts to a recent change in criminal law, which raised the threshold at which a theft would lead to felony charges by approximately $400.

Guam and the Northern Marianas

In Guam, average per capita consumption is 16 tins per year. It is also found on McDonald's menus there. The Spam Games also takes place in Guam, where locals sample and honor the best original, homemade Spam recipes.
In the Northern Mariana Islands, lawyers from Hormel have threatened to sue the local press for publishing articles alleging ill-effects of high Spam consumption on the health of the local population.

Puerto Rico

Sandwich de Mezcla is a party staple in Puerto Rico containing Spam, Velveeta, and pimientos between two slices of sandwich bread.

Europe

United Kingdom

After World War II, Newforge Foods, part of the Fitch Lovell group, was awarded the licence to produce the product in the UK at its Gateacre factory, Liverpool, where it stayed until production switched to the Danish Crown Group in 1998.
The United Kingdom has adopted Spam into various recipes. For example, recipes include Spam Yorkshire Breakfast, Spamish Omelette, and Spam Hash. Spam can also be sliced, battered and deep-fried into Spam fritters.

Southeast Asia

Philippines

In the Philippines, Spam is a popular food item and seen as a cultural symbol. As a former US territory, Spam reached the islands similar to how it reached Hawaii and Guam: as a result of World War II rationing. Spam is commonly eaten with rice and a sunny-side up egg for breakfast. It is prepared and used in a variety of ways, including being fried, served alongside condiments, or used in sandwiches. It has also been featured in numerous Filipino fusion cuisine dishes including Spam burgers, Spam spaghetti, Spam nuggets, and others.
The popularity of Spam in the Philippines transcends economic class, and Spam gift sets are even used as homecoming gifts. There are at least ten different varieties of Spam currently available in the country and an estimated 1.25 million kilos of the meat is sold every year in the Philippines. During the rescue efforts after Typhoon Ondoy in 2009, Hormel Foods donated over 30,000 pounds of Spam to the Philippine National Red Cross.

East Asia

Mainland China

In China, Hormel decided to adopt a different strategy to market Spam, promoting it as a foreign, premium food product and changing the Spam formula to be meatier in order to accommodate local Chinese tastes. Spam-like canned pork products are also producted by other food companies in China as "Luncheon Meat".

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong after World War II, meat was scarce and expensive, so Spam was an accessible, affordable alternative. The luncheon meat has been incorporated into dishes such as macaroni with fried egg and spam in chicken soup, as well as ramen.

Japan

In Okinawa, Japan, the product is added into onigiri alongside eggs and used as a staple ingredient in the traditional Okinawan dish chanpurū, and a Spam burger is sold by local fast food chain Jef. For the 70th anniversary of Spam in 2007, cans with special designs were sold in Japan due to its popularity, primarily in Okinawa.
Following the March 2011 earthquake, Spam sales in Japan declined and Hormel shifted its focus to China, although Hormel did pledge to donate $100,000 along with cans of Spam for relief efforts.
In early 2014, Burger King introduced the Spam and Cheese burger as a breakfast menu item.

South Korea

In later years, the surfeit of Spam in both North and South Korea during the Korean War led to the establishment of the Spam kimbap. Because of a scarcity of fish and other traditional kimbap products such as kimchi or fermented cabbage, Spam was added to a rice roll with kimchi and cucumber and wrapped in seaweed. Spam was also used by US soldiers in Korea as a means of trading for items, services or information around their bases.
In South Korea, Spam is popular with a majority of the population, and outranks Coca-Cola and KFC in status as a foodstuff. Today, South Korea produces and consumes more Spam than any other country except the United States.
Spam is also an original ingredient in budae jjigae, a spicy stew with different types of preserved meat.

Middle East

In Mandatory Palestine, demand for kosher canned meats increased as Spam became more popular during World War II. Canned meat was briefly mentioned during wartime from 1939–43, but the true boom in kosher canned meat came in 1945. This is when kosher canned meat became the key item in Europe's Jewish war victim relief packages. Then in 1946, the Chicago Kosher Sausage Manufacturing Company registered a patent for a kosher canned meat product called Breef. Made of beef, Breef has a similar texture to Spam but tastes like corned beef. Also, a kosher variant of Spam, known as Loof, was produced by Richard Levi, and mostly used as part of field rations by the Israel Defense Forces. A Glatt kosher version was also produced. It was phased out of field rations during the early 2000s and was finally removed from rations when production ceased in 2009.

In popular culture

Beginning in 1940, Spam sponsored George Burns and Gracie Allen on their radio program.
During WWII, Spam was not only eaten but was also incorporated into many other aspects of the war ; it was so prominent that Uncle Sam was nicknamed "Uncle Spam". Other terms influenced by the product's name include the European invasion fleet, or the "Spam Fleet". Furthermore, the United Service Organizations toured the "Spam Circuit".
In the United States in the aftermath of World War II, a troupe of former servicewomen was assembled by Hormel Foods to promote Spam from coast to coast. The group was known as the Hormel Girls and associated the food with being patriotic. In 1948, two years after its formation, the troupe had grown to 60 women with 16 forming an orchestra. The show went on to become a radio program where the main selling point was Spam. The Hormel Girls were disbanded in 1953.
Spam has long had a somewhat dubious reputation in the United States and United Kingdom as a poverty food. The image of Spam as a low cost meat product gave rise to the Scottish colloquial term "Spam valley" to describe certain affluent housing areas where residents appear to be wealthy but in reality may be living at poverty levels.
Spam was featured in an iconic 1970 Monty Python sketch called "Spam". Set in a café which mostly served dishes containing Spam, including "egg and Spam, egg bacon and Spam, Spam egg sausage and Spam, Spam egg Spam Spam bacon and Spam ", the piece also featured a companion song. Because of its use in a line of a song in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the title of the musical version of the film became Spamalot.
By the 1990s, Spam's perceived ubiquity led to its name being adopted for unsolicited electronic messages, especially spam email.
Spam is the subject of the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Spam", which is a parody of the R.E.M. song "Stand".
Other offshoots of Spam in popular culture include a book of haikus about Spam titled Spam-Ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf. There is also a mock Church of Spam, and a Spam Cam which is a webcam trained on a can of decaying Spam.
In the 1982 film Sophie's Choice, the character Stingo brings a carton of Spam to his newly-rented room.
Spam is referred to in Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore, where SPAM is explained as Shaped Pork Approximating Man, which was used to explain its popularity amongst Pacific Island Cannibals.
The Pumpkin Spice flavour, introduced in September 2019, has gained the attention of the media and public.

Spam celebrations

Spam is celebrated in Austin, Minnesota, home to the Spam Museum. The museum tells the history of the Hormel company, the origin of Spam, and its place in world culture, including Hawaii where Spam is eaten daily by locals.
Austin is also the location of final judging in the national Spam recipe competition. Competing recipes are collected from winning submissions at the top 40 state fairs in the nation. The Spamettes are a quartet from Austin who only sing about Spam in parodies of popular songs. They first performed at the first Spam Jam in 1990 and continue to perform at various events.
Hawaii holds an annual Spam Jam in Waikiki during the last week of April. The small town of Shady Cove, Oregon is home to the annual Spam Parade and Festival, with the city allocating US$1,500 for it.
Spamarama was a yearly festival from 1978 to 2007 in Austin, Texas which had a peak attendance of 14,000. The themed events included a Spam cook-off and the Spamalymplics including a "Spam toss" and a Spamburger eating contest. The event returned in 2019.

Nutritional data

The ingredients of Spam vary according to variety and market; those of variety "Spam Classic" are: pork, ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite.

Varieties

As listed on the official Spam website, there are numerous different flavors of Spam products, including: