Spam (food)
- This article is about canned meat. For other uses, see Spam.
Spam is a canned pork product that has entered into folklore. It is made by the Hormel Foods Corporation in (among other places) Austin, Minnesota (aka Spam Town USA).
The labeled ingredients in the original variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite. Other varieties of Spam differ; Spam Lite contains pork and chicken, and Spam Oven Roasted Turkey, a halaal food, is especially popular in Muslim markets.
The name of Spam
The name "Spam" was chosen in the 1930s when the product, whose original name—"Hormel Spiced Ham"—was far less memorable, began to lose market share. The name was chosen from multiple entries in a naming contest. A Hormel official once stated that the original meaning of the name Spam was "Shoulder of Pork and hAM". According to writer Marguerite Patten in Spam – The Cookbook, the name was suggested by Kenneth Daigneau, brother of the Hormel vice president and an actor.
Other explanations of the origin of the term include the acronym "Specially Processed American Meat","Spiced Pork And haM", "Specially Processed Army Meat", and "SPAre hAM"; there are also some less-than-serious explanations, such as "Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat", "Some Parts Are Meat", or "Stuff Posing As Meat". The current official explanation is the SP and AM were taken from "SPiced hAM" to win a $100 prize.
According to Hormel's trademark guidelines, Spam should be spelled with all capital letters and treated as an adjective, as in the phrase SPAM luncheon meat. However, barring having entered into a contract requiring one to do so, no one is legally obliged to follow such trademark guidelines. As with many other trademarks, such as Lego or Kleenex, people often refer to similar meat products as "Spam".
Spam around the world
Like most other luncheon meats, Spam is precooked. However, Spam is often pan-fried or otherwise heated through again to impart a pleasing texture and flavor.
Also of interest is a small local festival in Austin, Minnesota, United States, where Hormel corporate headquarters is located. The event, known as Spam Jam is a carnival-type celebration which coincides with local Fourth of July festivities, featuring parades and fireworks which often relate to the popular luncheon meat. Austin is also home to the Spam Museum, and the plant that produces the Spam for most of North America and Europe.
In the United States, the residents of the state of Hawaii and the territory of Guam consume the most Spam per capita. One popular Spam dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, in which cooked Spam is combined with rice and nori seaweed in a manner similar to a pressed sushi roll.
As of 2003, Spam is sold in 41 countries worldwide. The largest consumers of Spam after the United States are the United Kingdom and South Korea. It is also a favourite among the people of Saipan, of the Philippines, and Pacific Islanders.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev credited donations of American supplies of Spam for the ability of the Soviet Union to feed the Red Army during World War II.
As of 1997 there were over 5 billion tins sold. [1]
Cultural references
Spam was one of the few meat products excluded from the British food rationing that began in World War II (and continued for a number of years after the war), and the British grew heartily tired of it. The British comedy troupe Monty Python used this as the context for their Spam sketch, which gave rise to the term Spam as the common term for unsolicited bulk electronic messages. Hormel does not object to the term, but insists that it be spelled in lower case so as to distinguish it from its capitalized SPAM trademark. Hormel objects to Spam's "product identity" (for example, images of Spam cans) being used in relation to spamming, and has filed lawsuits against companies which have attempted to trademark words containing "Spam".
An Internet joke exists around the notion of a little known religion called "Spammism" which worships the meat.
The Internet also spawned the not-so-subtle art form of Spam Haiku; see for example The Spam Haiku Archive.
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song called "Spam" that is a parody of the R.E.M. song "Stand". The song's lyrics are all about the world-famous luncheon meat. The song is included on the soundtrack album for Yankovic's film UHF, although it does not appear in the movie.
The 1996 movie Muppet Treasure Island featured a character, a villainous pirate pig named "Spa'am". Hormel Foods Corporation sued Jim Henson Productions over the name in a court case that they eventually lost before the film was released.
The Monty Python musical Spamalot opened on Broadway in New York City in early 2005. It combines themes of the quest for the Holy Grail and Spam. As of April 2005, it was sold out for most performances. Hormel released a collector's edition "honey" Spam in connection with the musical.
According to comedian Bill Engvall, SPAM stands for Stuff Posing As Meat as heard in his album Dork Fish Drunk Food.