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It’s Spam appreciation week!

Spam Appreciation Week, I say! I’m sure Hormel sponsors this with the purest of motives.

If nothing else, you must listen to the Spam jingle from 1963. Scrub to 2:37 to hear the theme, words and all. Dude with a cut-glass accent teases it 4EVA.

My mama told me Spam was just made from the bits they had to trim off to fit Danish ham in those cans. It’s not true, but it’s nothing nasty. It’s just pork that’s been cooked in the can, like soup and dogfood. They’re cooked in the can, I mean. Not pork. We don’t feed cats and dogs pork and we don’t make pork soup, though I’m damned if I know why.

Anyhoo! Sliced thin, fried until crispy, covered in melted cheese on a toasted bagel half with mayo. How do you take your spam?

WARNING – WARNING – WARNING…geez, that Spam song is an earworm. Uncle B and I are rolling around on the floor clutching our heads like something out of a Star Trek episode and it Will Not Go Away.

Comments


Comment from mojo
Time: March 2, 2015, 10:15 pm

SPiced hAM, don’cha know.


Comment from mojo
Time: March 2, 2015, 10:17 pm

people get weirded out by the fat layer at the top. Don’t be, it makes excellent frying grease. Try frying some bread in it.

No, really.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 2, 2015, 10:23 pm

Stoaty—I am so glad to learn that you can get Spam in the U.K. (What about Armour’s Dried Beef?) I am an unabashed Spam Lover. Husband and I make a full meal out of it—gently sizzled, served with mustard (he’ll take spicy brown, but I want French’s), mashed potatoes, cole slaw (I make the best dressing ever), and beans. We do have trouble with the beans though. I prefer original Ranch Style (an old Texas brand canned in Fort Worth), but Husband wants Ranch Style Black-Eyed Peas. So we compromise on H.E.B.’s Spicy Charro Beans (pintos) with jalapenos. If it’s not too hot to turn on the oven, I bake cornbread to go with it. The leftover Spam goes into sandwiches—with mustard and mayo on homemade honey buttermilk bread.

Sometimes I dice a whole can, lightly fry it, then refrigerate it for breakfast burritos. A soft scrambled egg, sharp cheddar, Spam, and salsa—wrapped in a warm flour tortilla—it’s a good way to start the day. Or for supper. I may fix that for supper tonight 🙂


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 2, 2015, 10:33 pm

Hi Deborah – we did have Armour stuff decades ago (I take it that is ‘Armour Star’?). For some reason it vanished from the shelves, oh, I dunno,… back in the ’60s or ’70s perhaps?

There was a murmuring of disquiet a few years ago (look, this is Spam we’re talking about, it wasn’t going to be outrage 😉 ) when Hormel stopped making Spam here and switched production to Denmark.

You still see it for sale, though.


Comment from Ben
Time: March 2, 2015, 11:07 pm

http://spam.budwin.net/index.html


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: March 2, 2015, 11:08 pm

I like my spam with a large scoop of Christina Hendricks, hold the spam.


Comment from Mitchell
Time: March 2, 2015, 11:10 pm

So, there’s a picture of a weasel riding on the back of the bird out there.

Dunno if either of them care for SPAM! though.


Comment from mojo
Time: March 2, 2015, 11:16 pm

It’s the Adolph and Eva Show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf9jJx0NSjw


Comment from grizzly
Time: March 3, 2015, 12:37 am

Oh, that SPAM jingle is just begging to become a ringtone for someone special in my life! Heh.


Comment from Nina
Time: March 3, 2015, 12:46 am

I’ll eat it fried up extra dark, with eggs and cheese or on bread with cheese.


Comment from JeffS
Time: March 3, 2015, 12:51 am

And now I know the inspiration for this memorable skit ….


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 3, 2015, 1:11 am

Mrs. Vegetable is a Japanese girl, and over the years we’ve been married she has had various adventures with mysterious American foods.

There was the shock that chicken-fried steak is not chicken…there was her secret out-of-control Twinkie addiction which some other sugar junkie had turned her on to. The horror of her first bite of a Ruben sandwich. And then was the SPAM.

We had recently moved and she had made some new friends, one hailing from Alabama, and the other from Guam where the Spam is the national territorial animal. Both were stunned when SPAM came up in conversation and she had never heard of it. They sent her home with a blue can and instructions to scold me for not teaching her about an American institution. We had the following conversation:

Her “Why did you never teach me about SPAM?”
(Remembering delicious, delicious Twinkies)

Me ” I’ve worked very hard so you wouldn’t have to eat SPAM (Remembering childhood when real meat was out of budget)

Her “Does it taste bad?” (Remembering trying to get taste of a Ruben Sandwich our of her mouth for half an hour)

Me “Well, actually, it’s pretty damn good, maybe a little salty, but Fried SPAM is delicious” (Remembering that honesty is the best policy and knowing that after the Twinkie incident, she’ll just sneak around and become a SPAM Junkie I’d she likes it, so lying would be pointless. Even the true True!! story of the 1,000 year-old Twinkie the cockroaches wouldn’t touch didn’t faze her.)

Her “What is it made from?”

Me “Ahhhh, THAT’S the question…..


Comment from Phineas
Time: March 3, 2015, 1:26 am

http://www.businessinsider.com/photo-of-weasel-attacking-a-woodpecker-2015-3


Comment from mojo
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:14 am

Ah, “Cured Luncheon Loaf”, sounds deee-lish….


Comment from mojo
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:18 am

Supposedly, Hormel was on the brink when they were tapped to provide canned meat to the Brits during the run-up to WW Deuce. They also sold it to Unka Sammie by the shipload – GI’s developed quite a taste for it. Ever try and eat the lima beans from a K-ration? yeah. QUITE a taste.


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:25 am

WARNING – WARNING – WARNING…geez, that Spam song is an earworm. Uncle B and I are rolling around on the floor clutching our heads like something out of a Star Trek episode and it Will Not Go Away.

It doesn’t bother me so much, but I can’t stop singing it (but I’ve had this song (albeit not this truly gag-reflex inducing version) stuck in my head since about 2003, so a little spam isn’t so bad), & I think my wife will murder me in my sleep soon. 😀


Comment from ed
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:27 am

Spam fried rice


Comment from gulliblepratt@hotmail.com
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:38 am

Self explanetory
http://io9.com/yes-this-is-a-photo-of-a-weasel-riding-a-woodpecker-in-1689046593


Comment from Mr. Dave
Time: March 3, 2015, 2:45 am

We don’t feed pork to our dog because of the turbulent wind it produces.


Comment from Davem123
Time: March 3, 2015, 3:06 am

Spam Appreciation Week seems appropriate. Yesterday (March 1st) is National Pig Day.

My wife can’t stand Spam, although I’m not sure she’s ever tried it. It’s just another handy variation on pork to me. I like the individually packaged single slices, great to carry in a pack.


Comment from Airborne Weasel
Time: March 3, 2015, 4:08 am

I am sure there is a perfectly scientific explanation.

(Bwittain, natch).


Comment from LesterIII
Time: March 3, 2015, 4:12 am

Mojo, try leaving the can in sunlight for a bit and then slurp the gel/fat off the top with a straw. Good stuff.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 3, 2015, 5:09 am

Yes Uncle Badger—Armour dried beef had a star on the label. Now the glass jar has a little ring of raised stars around it. I keep a jar of dried beef and a can of Spam in the pantry at all times—you never know when disaster might strike! I did have one disaster WITH Spam. I used it in split pea soup. It was so bad even the bird dogs refused it.


Comment from Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Time: March 3, 2015, 6:08 am

Spam musubi is a Hawaiian staple. A former girlfriend makes a great Spam soup (corn chowder with spam in place of bacon).


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: March 3, 2015, 6:13 am

Without which no discussion of spam would be complete…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE


Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: March 3, 2015, 7:20 am

Fried SPAM is very, very tasty.


Comment from JuliaM
Time: March 3, 2015, 8:27 am

O/T (and I’m sure I won’t be the only one to send you this):

http://t.co/L8yWyxuG0j


Comment from F X Muldoon
Time: March 3, 2015, 1:10 pm

“Spam musubi is a Hawaiian staple.”

Second the motion; marinated in teriyaki, fried crispy with a sprinkle of fufuraki on the rice before wrapping in the nori. Hard to beat for a portable snack or meal.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: March 3, 2015, 1:30 pm

Oh come on now, Mr. Dave. At least that “turbulent wind” from your dog exterminates every pest in your entire neighborhood. Is that not worth the temporary discomfort from same???


Comment from Brother Cavil
Time: March 3, 2015, 3:17 pm

Came here to post the weasel-on-a-woodpecker pic. Found a half-dozen posters beat me to it.

Carry on…


Comment from David Gillies
Time: March 3, 2015, 4:20 pm

Spam was a pretty major constituent of the diet of British soldiers overseas during WW2. Spam fritters lose their appeal when they have been swimming in lukewarm grease for an hour. My father didn’t regain his taste for it until the 70’s, and we never had it fried. That would have evoked some sort of PTSD reaction. I used to eat it in sandwiches with the bread sliced very thin and with plenty of Colman’s English mustard. I did buy some here in Costa Rica but it seemed to me they’d changed the recipe and it wasn’t very nice.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 3, 2015, 9:35 pm

I know a local restaurant that still sells Spam fritters. I had them once. It was…okay.


Comment from Timothy S. Carlson
Time: March 3, 2015, 9:48 pm

There is ‘pork soup’. It’s called Sinigang here, and it’s very, _very_ sour. There’s also Nilagang Baboy.

The broth is good – but boiled pork (the meat itself) is rather nasty.


Comment from Stark Dickflüssig
Time: March 4, 2015, 6:59 pm

Off topic, but, I saw this & thought of this weblog? —> http://www.5z8.info/boobs_g2v5cz_fakelogin

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