Where is spam from

After the war, Hormel actively advertised the product, getting big names to sing its praises. Plants overseas also began producing Spam.

By , Hormel had manufactured its billionth can. By , the oz g can was joined by a 7-oz g can for single people and small families.

Other innovations included Spam with cheese chunks and smoke-flavored product and Spam-Lite A major re-design of the label occurred in , and both the old and new version entered the Smithsonian. The primary ingredient in Spam is chopped pork shoulder meat mixed with ham. This ratio varies according to ham and pork prices. The U. Department of Agriculture does not permit any nonmeat fillers in lunchmeat, nor does it allow pig snouts, lips, or ears.

The second ingredient is salt, added for flavor and for use as a preservative. Also, a small amount of water is used to bind all ingredients together. Sugar is also included for flavor. Finally, sodium nitrate is added to prevent botulism and acts as a preservative as well. It is the sodium nitrite that gives Spam its bright pink color—without it, Spam would discolor and become brown.

Hormel would likely agree that Spam begins with quality pork and ham. Hornel no longer supplies its own meat for Spam, but the company chooses the meat carefully. Meat-cutters who cut the meat from the ham carefully perform their tasks and throw the pieces into the appropriate gondola. Also, the huge hydrostatic cooker has an alarm that trips if the computer detects there is any problem with the batch. The workers must fix that problem within three minutes.

If they don't, the entire batch's viability is in question. Portions of each batch are examined to make sure the batch has the right amount of pork shoulder to ham. Department of Agriculture does not permit any Spam cans to leave the processing plant for 10 days. The bacteria content is also tested. Finally, taste tests are routine at Hormel Foods Corporation. Every Friday all executives involved in Spam production meet to visually inspect and sometimes taste several different batches of Spam produced during the week.

Since Spam was first released it has undergone many transformations. People are coming up with endless recipes that call for Spam, and Hormel is trying to incorporate every consumer's need into their product development. While housewives in the late '30s soon grew accustomed to the idea of unrefrigerated meat, the brand didn't make its global mark until World War II, when the U. Hormel's figures put the number at million pounds of Spam sent abroad to both American and Allied soldiers.

As troops started to complain about eating Spam or some other canned meat variant for as many as three meals a day, Hormel faced an unexpected anti-Spam backlash. In his New Yorker interview, Hormel revealed to Gill that he kept a "Scurrilous File" collecting hate mail from American GIs, in which "he dumps the letters of abuse that are sent to him by soldiers everywhere in the world. Hormel told us, 'they ought to have eaten the bully beef we had in the last war.

During WWII, Spam's reach made its way to England and the countries of the Asian Pacific, where rationing and the presence of American troops saw the meat become a menu staple. Laudan, who grew up in postwar Britain, has written about how deep-fried Spam fritters "turned up regularly for school lunches… one more in the series of horrors produced by the school cooks" in England.

By the end of WWII — and with thousands of American GIs returning home who would refuse to eat it — Spam saw its role start to slowly shift away from convenient protein source to "sometimes-food" side dish. The evolution definitely started in the '60s where it became more of an ingredient: It was used for sandwiches and as an ingredient in eggs.

But while the core of America pushed Spam to the side of their plates, the canned meat became a culinary sensation in much of the Asian Pacific and Hawaii. Asia's present-day fondness for Spam stemmed directly from WWII and following conflicts, during which an entire generation grew up with Spam. In Hawaii, Spam's proliferance happened less due to the presence of American GIs and more to the government restrictions unfairly placed on the local population.

Instead, the United States placed sanctions on Hawaiian residents, restricting the deep-sea fishing industries that were mainly run by Japanese-Americans. Because islanders were no longer allowed to fish, Laudan says, "one of the important sources of protein for the islands vanished. Simultaneously across the Pacific, residents of Korea and Japan "were on the point of starvation," Laudan says.

Army base with broth and spices. Today, Korea is the world's second-largest consumer of Spam after only the United States , where it's seen as a luxury item: Spam is a popular gift for the Lunar New Year, packaged in gift boxes along with cooking oil and seasonings. Spam musubi. In the decades after WWI, as native Koreans and Japanese migrated to Hawaii, food culture in the islands became even more intertwined, combining the culinary preferences of natives and the Asian and Anglo diasporas.

Japanese immigrants to Hawaii are credited with inventing Spam musubi, a Hawaiian version of onigiri that binds a cooked slab of Spam to rice with a piece of nori. Touted for its portability, it's still widely available in Hawaiian convenience stores as an easy grab-and-go lunch or snack. Diner staple loco moco, a dish featuring rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried egg, and brown gravy often features Spam as an additional protein.

And the meat pops up in everything from fried rice to omelets to saimin the Hawaiian noodle soup dish. Today, Spam fervor in Hawaii has sustained a decade-old Spam festival in Waikiki, where chefs and Spam-lovers gather to appreciate and explore the lunchmeat's role in Hawaiian culture.

Earlier this spring, the 12th-annual Spam Jam saw more than 24, attendees converge to sample dishes like Spam lettuce wraps, Spam and corn chowder, Spam-and-basil on Sicilian-style pizza, and a dessert dubbed "Mom's Puerto Rican Spam flan. Like crazy," says festival co-founder Karen Winpenny, who has memories of the ingredient dating back to when she was eight or nine years old.

According to Winpenny, the first edition of Spam Jam was devised as a way to get local Waikiki residents to intermingle with tourists and vice versa.

Something new. Most importantly, the event has emerged as a way to raise money and awareness for the Hawaii Food Bank. The Hawaii Food Bank's most-requested item is cans of Spam. The story found its way across the Pacific, with Winpenny bringing it up during our conversation: "I read an article: I guess New York's starting to do something with Spam, too.

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