For better or worse,
Spam's popular again
By Diane Steinle, Editor of
Editorials-North Pinellas
July 20, 2008
Something has happened to make me understand the depth of
I'll forego restaurant meals and trips to the mall.
Vacations — who needs 'em?
I'll squeeze every drop of gasoline from the Camry's tank, and I'll stretch
every penny until it hurts.
Just please, please don't let me have to go back to eating
Spam.
I lived on the stuff my last couple of years in college,
when I didn't have enough money to buy the campus meal plan and, lacking a car,
had no regular access to fresh foods from a grocery store. I cooked my own
meals in an illegal electric frying pan in my dorm room, and if not for Spam, I
might have starved to death.
It was cheap and easily stored. I ate Spam and mustard
sandwiches for lunch. I had fried Spam slices for dinner. For a rare gourmet
treat, I'd plop a ring of canned pineapple on top of a slab of Spam and
decorate it with ketchup.
I ate Spam, too, during a couple of lean years
right after college. But with a little more cash in my pocket then, I could
afford to get fancy. I'd stud the brick of Spam with whole cloves and bake it
in the oven. Or I'd create a glaze by mixing up a little brown sugar and orange
juice and pouring it over a fried slice topped with pineapple or thin apple
slices.
I felt a sense of kinship with the soldiers of World War II,
who were reported to have survived in the trenches by eating a Spam-like canned
meat product.
I ate Spam until the very sight or smell of it activated my
gag reflex.
And now, it's back, the meat product called upon to feed
Hormel Foods Corp., which manufactures Spam, recently
reported a 14 percent increase in sales during the second quarter of this year.
According to the company, all kinds of people — young, old, rich, poor — are
buying Spam, to the point that a company official told the Associated Press,
"We have significantly increased our household penetration."
Not bad for a product first introduced in 1937,
and which has been the subject of much guffawing during years when people
didn't have to worry so much about their grocery bills.
Classic Spam hasn't changed much since my college years. It
is still made from pork (there is much debate about which part of the pig is
used), salt, water, potato starch and sugar, with some preservatives thrown in.
It is still a pale pink, and it is still sold in a dense, damp brick in a
rectangular can. It is already cooked, but it looks less — well, gelatinous —
if it is fried or baked before it is eaten.
However, the Spam product line has expanded a lot in the
last 30 years. The company now offers Spam Lite, Spam
Turkey, Spam with Bacon, Spam with Cheese, Spam with Garlic, Hot and Spicy
Spam, and low-salt Spam. There is even Spam Single, a cooked slice in a 3-ounce
pouch which tells the consumer to "throw your head back and think
wonderful thoughts of faraway places while you chew." Hormel even suggests
making a necklace out of the Spam Single pouch and hanging it around your neck.
There's a little drawing to show you how to wear it.
Another thing that has changed about Spam is the hype. The
Monty Python musical, Spamalot, helped that along,
but the marketing geniuses at Hormel have kicked up the kitsch. The Spam Web
site, www.spam.com, showcases Spam music, Spam facts, Spam hats and mugs and
shirts, a Spam fan club, and the travel schedule for the Spammobile.
What probably hasn't changed is the way nutritionists blanch
when they read the nutrition label on Spam. One 3-ounce package of Spam Single
has 250 calories, with 200 of those coming from fat. That single serving
contains 34 percent of the daily value for fat and 41 percent of the daily
value for salt.
But it also has 11 grams of protein, which is, after all,
the reason that people buy Spam. They buy it because they believe it is cheaper
than fresh meat, though with Publix selling Spam Classic for about $2.80 for a
12-ounce can, some fresh hamburger and chicken would cost less per pound.
People also buy it because it is convenient — already cooked — and easy to
store. I kept Spam on the closet shelf in my dorm room. These days, I'm betting
people keep it in their pantry for those weeks when the paycheck is gone and
the refrigerator is bare.
Spam to the rescue.
Oh, no!
tampabay.com