Do you like eating Spam ? DW and I argue about Spam

[swakyaby]

I confess to enjoying the occasional spam musobi: fry a slice of spam until browned on one side, flip it over and fry in a small amount of soy sauce and brown sugar. Lay a section of roasted nori, layer some sushi rice, then the slice of spam and top with another piece of roasted nori. Press with the can (or a musobi press), and enjoy while still warm.

I actually own a spam slicer, and a musobi press in the shape of a can of spam.


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[Midpack]

Only had it once or twice as a kid about 50 years ago.

 

[Nemo2]

In the early 1960s, outside Adelaide, South Australia, I worked for a while at a plant producing a Spam type product...........there might be many things I'd do with this stuff, but eating it is not one of them.

 

[pb4uski]

You would probably say the same about hot dogs and especially about Jello.

 

[REWahoo]

...and chocolate milk.

 

[pb4uski]

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

 

[folivier]

I'm another Spam lover! Always have a few cans in the pantry. Like to fry it and slap it on some poboy bread with a little mustard. Yummmm, might have some today.

 

[Totoro]

I go with corned beef on a regular basis. Been told it's almost the same as spam?

 

[braumeister]

In the early 1960s, outside Adelaide, South Australia, I worked for a while at a plant producing a Spam type product...........there might be many things I'd do with this stuff, but eating it is not one of them.

I think it was Bismarck who said the public should never see how sausages or laws were made.
Reminds me of a time (also in the 60s) when I w*rked at a Howard Johnson's where one of the local specialties was the ham salad. At that time, the state law required that at least 40% of the meat in ham salad had to be ham. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I go with corned beef on a regular basis. Been told it's almost the same as spam?

Nothing like it.

 

[Fedup]

My husband and I love spam and corned beef. But we buy them as earthquake food, so occasionally we have to eat some to recycle the food and get new ones for storage. I only have corned beef once a year.


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[bld999]

I confess to enjoying the occasional spam musobi: fry a slice of spam until browned on one side, flip it over and fry in a small amount of soy sauce and brown sugar. Lay a section of roasted nori, layer some sushi rice, then the slice of spam and top with another piece of roasted nori. Press with the can (or a musobi press), and enjoy while still warm.

I actually own a spam slicer, and a musobi press in the shape of a can of spam.


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I thought that sounded Hawaiian, googled and ...Yup!
I think I will stick with locomoco and leave you the spam.

 

[tfudtuckerpucker]

When I read this thread, in my head it sounds like everyone is talking in a screechy voice

Monty Python - Spam

 

[O2Bfree]

I like spam, but don't eat much meat these days. When I do I try to choose meat from animals that have been raised and butchered more humanely. But we came across a couple cans recently in our disaster supplies, and they're nearing expiration, so it'll be spam and eggs or spam musubi soon.

The 5-ingredient = processed food thing is puzzling. Shouldn't it be more an issue of artificial chemical ingredients?

 

[bjorn2bwild]

Ah, Soylent pink. The temptations of a meat grinder are many.
For the past three months, I have observed an unopened can of Spam sitting by the side of the road on my regular Sunday ride, this places the street value in my area below that of a discarded aluminum can.

 

[HFWR]

I go with corned beef on a regular basis. Been told it's almost the same as spam?

"Real" corned beef is brisket, submerged in a brine for several days, then boiled with more of the pickling spice. Pastrami is, basically, smoked corned beef.

Spam is made from the parts that come over the fence last...

 

[littleb]

Bought a can today while shopping at the grocery store.

 

[youbet]

The Spam Museum in Austin, Minn. is well worth stopping to see if you're passing through that area. It's not far off the Interstate and has been recently remodeled too! We were there in 2012 and it was really a hoot.

I can't say we're frequent Spam consumers but we do bring it with us when camping and it's OK fried with eggs at breakfast or fried and eaten in a sandwich.

In the 1970's I worked for one of Spam's competitors. I was in the can manufacturing department but frequently got over to the canning and processing area. Any canned meat product is going to look a bit unsavory during processing and canning and ours were not exceptions. Vienna sausages, chili, pate', meat based soups, etc. I had little appetite for any of it for a while. Things were extraordinarily clean, orderly and sanitary in the plant. It just didn't seem like mom's kitchen. I'm sure the situation at Spam is the same. When you're processing tens of thousands of cans a day, it's going to look like a factory......

 

[NW-Bound]

... Any canned meat product is going to look a bit unsavory during processing and canning and ours were not exceptions. Vienna sausages, chili, pate', meat based soups, etc...

Any slaughterhouse is going to look unsavory. That applies also to the meat department in the back of your grocery store where they shrink wrap the meat and make it look pretty before bringing it out to the shelves.

Back on Spam, I have not had it for decades. Time to try it again, I guess. As far as processed food, I guess it is not too different than regular ham or salami in terms of salt or added ingredients for preservatives.

PS. I have watched an episode of a show on FoodTV where they filmed inside a Spam factory. Nothing unsanitary or looking bad about it. The big chunks of meat may be fatty, but I did not see them add scrap or bad stuff to it. Did they "sanitize" for the filming? I don't know.

 

[Walt34]

DW walked in when I was reading this thread and said she hadn't had any Spam since her teens, same as me. On impulse, I just ordered two cans from Amazon along with some sriracha hot sauce. I'll have to think up how to prepare this with eggs and maybe some cheese.

 

[CardsFan]

I confess to enjoying the occasional spam musobi: fry a slice of spam until browned on one side, flip it over and fry in a small amount of soy sauce and brown sugar. Lay a section of roasted nori, layer some sushi rice, then the slice of spam and top with another piece of roasted nori. Press with the can (or a musobi press), and enjoy while still warm.

I actually own a spam slicer, and a musobi press in the shape of a can of spam.


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Yesterday there was an episode of Andrew Zimmern's Delicious Destinations (Travel Channel) in Honolulu that featured something very similar. According to the show, Spam was popularized there during WWII, as a staple of the armed forces.

 

[braumeister]

The Spam Museum in Austin, Minn. is well worth stopping to see if you're passing through that area. It's not far off the Interstate and has been recently remodeled too! We were there in 2012 and it was really a hoot.

I visited in 2011 and spent an enjoyable couple of hours there. Well worth the visit if you're in the region.

 

[ERD50]

In the early 1960s, outside Adelaide, South Australia, I worked for a while at a plant producing a Spam type product...........there might be many things I'd do with this stuff, but eating it is not one of them.

You would probably say the same about hot dogs and especially about Jello.

From what I've read, there's nothing unsavory about Spam or hot dogs.

From wiki:

Spam's basic ingredients are pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, sugar, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Natural gelatin forms during cooking in its tins on the production line.

And the whole hot dog scare is generally a myth. I looked into this a while back, and while in the US, hot dog producers are allowed to use a wide variety of 'parts and pieces', it turns out that all has to be on the label. So no one adds lips and kidneys to hot dogs, as they are afraid to turn off kids from hot dogs.

From the USDA:

Hot Dogs and Food Safety

Byproducts, Variety Meats
"Frankfurter, Hot Dog, Wiener, or Bologna With Byproducts" or "With Variety Meats" are made according to the specifications for cooked and/or smoked sausages (see above), except they consist of not less than 15% of one or more kinds of raw skeletal muscle meat with raw meat byproducts. The byproducts (heart, kidney, or liver, for example) must be named with the derived species and be individually named in the ingredients statement.

Haven't had Spam for over 30 years, but I recall occasionally frying up a slice to add to an egg at breakfast. It was OK, and convenient.

-ERD50

 

[Nemo2]

From what I've read, there's nothing unsavory about Spam

The stuff 'we' were making, and the slaughterhouse was adjacent to the plant, had (IMO) an excessive percentage of pork fat relative to pork meat.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes, Spam does have a lot of fat, not other pork organs.

But, but, but is that not what bacon is, which is loved by so many?

 

[Lucantes]

I love SPAM and many other canned or processed meats and could care less what other people think about that!!
Have loved it since I was first introduced to it way back as a poor child, and love it still to this day!
To be honest, I don't care what they do to it to get it exactly the way it comes out of the can when I open it...cause I luvs it!
"Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spammity Spam, Wonderful Spam."