Recently there has been a rash of spam filling up everyone’s email boxes. Jerry wrote a great post about spam (the email kind). I thought I would write about the other kind of spam.
Spam is big here in Hawaii (not the email kind but the processed meat kind). You know, that mystery meat surrounded by that gooey slimy stuff packed in a tin can. According to Wikipedia, in Hawaii, spam is so popular that it is sometimes dubbed “The Hawaiian Steak.”
I can definitely attest that people go crazy over their spam here. Spam is a very popular ingredient in all kinds of potluck dishes. Spam musubi is the most popular way spam is eaten. People have spam musubi at the beach, on a hike, for breakfast or lunch, and for a snack. It is also one of the most popular foods you will find in lunches on field trips. You can even buy spam musubi at 7-11 and you will find spam on the menu at McDonalds.
This past Saturday the 8th annual Waikiki Spam Jam took place to collect cans of food for the Hawaii Foodbank. Check out the spamjamhawaii website for more information on this festival. The goal of the Spam Jam festival is to collect 5,000 cans of food for the to support the Hawaii Foodbank.
The question is…do you like spam?
And now for a blast from the past…
Monty Python – Spam ~ *video was removed from youtube – boo!!
shave ice & gelato 
Oh that’s too funny! The answer for me would be…no, not a spam-fan! Although come to think of it, I’m not positive I’ve ever tasted it…I have it in my head that it is probably somewhere between canned corned beef and bologna, neither of which float my boat. Maybe I’m selling the stuff short though. I’ll pick up a can sometime and give it a try.
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I have never had spam either – and I had no idea that spam was so popular in Hawaii! Any idea why?
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Just when you thought it was safe to watch a little YouTube…..
That was hilarious, I hadn’t seen that skit before. The mix of Vikings and Spam is intriguing.
In Canada, Spam is generally called Prem (I don’t know why) and I’m sorry to say that when I was a kid, it was a staple on our family camping trips. Yes, it was even fried at times. My dad, quite rightly, refused to eat it. But we kids would gobble it up quite happily (anything cooked over the fire and consumed at a picnic table had to be good!) And I suppose for my parents, canned goods were easier to pack on camping trips than trying to keep things fresh in the old Coleman cooler.
But as Chiocciola says, I wonder why Spam is so big in Hawaii??
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My dad loves spam and I grew up eating spam. I preferred cooked spam to raw spam, but that was before I saw the gooey stuff that the spam is surrounded by. I stopped eating spam when I moved to Colorado for gradutate school and started reading about healthy vs non-healthy foods. college and have never eaten a spam musubi here (but love other types of musubi). We also ate those vienna sausages as kids. I stopped eating them also when I moved to Colorado.
Anne & Chiocciola, if you do try it, make sure to fry it first.
Sandra, prem huh? I never heard that name before. I have not seen a lot of Monty Python, but remember hearing that song on the radio all the time. We used to sing it while my dad cooked the spam.
I really don’t know why it is more popular here. I read that it was because it was easy to keep for hurricanes but then why do people eat it all the time? I don’t really think that is the reason. I guess I will start asking people at work and find out what they say.
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I had it one time when I was a kid….and once was enough!
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Thanks for the info, Girasoli! Now I am going to google spam to see what exactly it is made of…
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I have asked a few friends about the love for spam. Tradition is the answer I keep getting…I still don’t get it!
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I’m also a Spam virgin.
Hee, I followed the link about Spam musubi. I’m kind of in shock. Dear God, no. It’s like a sushi nightmare. LOL
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A sushi nightmare :-) That is funny!! For me, I could understand if the spam was fried well because then it can be sort of tasty although I won’t eat it because it is very unhealthy, but most spam musubi is just cut up spam right out of the can.
The other night at my PTG meeting (I am one of the teacher reps this year) they were talking about the end of the year Teacher’s Appreciation breakfast and spam and eggs and rice were the first foods brought up. I tell you it is BIG here! And when I asked my doctor to tell me what kind of foods were high cholesterol, the first food he mentioned was SPAM!!
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