Ernie & Tony,
SPAM - <i>THE </i>Facts: all You'll ever need to or want to know about . . . . SPAM! Enjoy! [:o)]
Pat.
SPAM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A can of SPAMâ„¢ is a canned meat product. It is made by the Hormel Foods Corporation in (among other places) Austin, Minnesota (aka Spam Town USA). Although SPAM is simply a meat product, it has gained an odd fame completely out of proportion for a mere grocery store item, and has even entered into folklore and legend.
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, is a halaal food, meaning that it is allowed under Islamic law, and is especially popular in Muslim markets.
The name of Spam
Introduced in 1937, 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. The current official explanation is that the name is a portmanteau of "SPiced hAM", and that the originator was given a $100 prize for coming up with the name.
Other explanations of the origin of the term include the definitions "Spiced Pork And haM" and "SPAre hAM"; there are also some jocular definitions, such as "Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat", "Some Parts Are Meat", "Specially Processed American Meat", "Someone's Pigs Are Missing", "Slime Posing As Meat", or "Spare Parts and Animal Mucus", amongst a multitude of other similar parody names.
The humorous radio show Ask Dr. Science claimed it is an acronym for "Scientifically Produced Animal Matter", a product of the food synthesis experiments of the 1950s, whose "closest living relative was the Velveeta, a kind of synthetic jellyfish."
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.
Spam is celebrated in a small local festival in Austin, Minnesota, United States, where Hormel corporate headquarters are 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.
The Spam Jam is not to be confused with SPAMARAMA, which is a yearly festival held on April Fool's Day in Austin, Texas. The theme of SPAMARAMA is gentle parody of Spam, rather than straightforward celebration: the event at the heart of the festival is a SPAM cook-off that originated as a challenge to produce an appetizing recipe for the meat. The festival includes light sporting activities and numerous musical acts, in addition to the cook-off.
In the United States, the residents of the state of Hawaii and the territory of Guam consume the most Spam per capita. On average, each person on Guam consumes 16 tins of spam each year. Guam and Hawaii have the only McDonald's restaurants that feature SPAM on the menu. 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. The curious popularity of SPAM in Hawaii and Guam is explained by two factors: (1) It is an economical meat product, where most food is expensive because of high shipping costs to the islands, and (2) the presence of US troops there during World War II. SPAM was one of the very few meat products allowed in Hawaii and Guam during that time due to shortages and scarcity of modern refrigerated shipping.
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 favorite among the people of Saipan (part of a U.S. insular area), of the Philippines,#12288;of Okinawa, 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
Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Brigadier General.
Carroll's Corps,(II)
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia.
C.S.A.Cabinet Secretary
" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "
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