How old is spam

That equates to 33, pounds. Looks like Spam is still alive and well in the culinary scheme of things. The classic Spam is made up of pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, sugar, potato starch, and sodium nitrate. Hawaii has the largest market for Spam worldwide. This is probably as a result of those Word War II soldiers on the Pacific coasts falling in love with the stuff.

The Philippines can almost give Hawaii a run for their money in the Spam department. Popular items include Spam spaghetti, Spam eggs, and even a Spam gift set, that is actually widely considered by Filipinos to be a very thoughtful wedding gift.

The official Spam museum is located in Austin, Minnesota. Like any museum, there are specialists who lead tours. 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.

The pork is from the shoulder portion of pigs , according to spam. Salt, water and sugar are familiar to us all, so that leaves potato starch and sodium nitrite that need explanation. The food processing industry uses potato starch as a thickener, binder or gelling agent.

In Spam it's a binder, which means it holds the bits of pork together. Sodium nitrite does two important things in meat. It significantly delays the development of bacteria a good thing since some bacteria can cause botulism by releasing a deadly toxin to humans. It also gives meat products their pinkish or reddish tints. Canned beans, Velveeta, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and Ritz Crackers all became regulars at the dinner table for many of these families.

Spam fit well into this scheme, as it was a very compact and inexpensive meat that could keep for months. During the era of rationing which began in for the U.

A whole generation of women were using Spam in their recipes and would continue doing so for many decades after. Included in field rations and as part of food aid to various European countries, the pork-based loafed meat became synonymous with the era on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the other hand many soldiers came home with a hankering for it. After the war the Hormel girls were a traveling act that toured the country promoting Spam. The woman troop was selected from former military members and was on tour and on the radio until