From: rogers@rosencrantz.osf.org (Andrew Rogers)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:47:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: osf.1992Jul22.204727.8064
Organization: HICAM/OSD

A couple weeks ago, the Boston Globe ran the following article on Spam (the
'teaser' on the front page of the section read 'Derrick Z. Jackson on lovely
Spam, wonderful Spam.  Page 71.')!  Of course, this is copied without
permission...


                	   A taste of the islands
                           - ----- -- --- -------

		             Derrick Z. Jackson
                           (Boston Globe, 7/12/92)
		

  With all the serious events around us, I almost forgot to tell you about
my Adventures With Spam.  You know Spam.  Faster than a squealing pig.
More sodium than bovine salt lick.  Able to leap out of cans on a single
bound.  Look up on the rack.  Is it food?  Is it dog food?  No, it's Spam!

  I encountered this culinary version of Kryptonite in a most unexpected
manner.  I was on spring vacation in Hawaii.  We went to Hamamura Saimin
Stand on Kauai.  Saimin is a noodles-in-broth dish.  A tour book said of
Hamamura:

  "Locals have sung the praises of this beloved Kauai institution and
gobbled up its saimin for as log as anybody can remember...  you're in for
a great taste treat as well as one of the cheapest meals on Kauai."

  The saimin was good.  Lots of vegetables were mixed in.  Then it dawned
on me.  What were those strips of pale pink meat with the white spots in
there?  I had not let such a sight touch my lips since around the age of
12, when I overdosed on Spam and started frying Oscar Mayer bologna in
Crisco.

  I asked the chef to confirm my suspicions.  She gave me a wry smile that
said, "So you were expecting prime rib?"  She said it was Spam.  I thought
I had died and went to politically incorrect hell.

  It has nothing to do with religion or being on a macrobiotic diet.  I
have certainly eaten - in moderation, of course - other trash meats.  It's
just that for a quarter-century I could look at Spam on grocery store
shelves, turn up my nose and praise myself for being too cultured to
purchase such a low-class food.

  But now the spell was broken.  Two days later I stepped into a diner.
There were these delectable looking sushi rolls laid out on the checkout
counter.

  It did not occur to me that something must be wrong.  Normally, sushi and
its cousins are seaweed and sticky rice wrapped around or topped by raw
fish.  There was no refrigerator in sight.  It was 80 degrees.  The rolls
had been lying there for several hours.  But they looked *soooo* good.  And
they were *soooo* cheap.  A buck-fifty.  Not having a clue what was inside,
I bought one.

  My teeth cut through the seaweed and descended through the rice.  Then I
hit the core.  Spam again!

  A few days later, we were at a Hawaiian brunch buffet.  Guess what you
could have in scrambled eggs?  Guess what appeared in fried rice?  It was
not strips of prime rib.  By now, we figured there must be a history to
Spam on Hawaii.

  Spam was prime meat for soldiers and civilians in Hawaii in World War II.
After the war, Spam remained popular because of the high cost of fresh meat
on the islands.  Hawaii is the leading per-capita consumer of Spam in the
US.  The Hawaii Spam Cookbook says Spam is "Hawaii's soul food."

  Maili Yardley, a long-time food columnist on Kauai, read to me some of
the recipes out of the Spam cookbook.  There were recipes for Spam in
omelettes and in cole slaw, and for roasting it, pig-style, in a charcoal
pit.  You can make Spam and beans, Spam and eggplant, Spam and popping
peas, Spam and Spam fried rice and Spam and Japanese radish fermented in a
syrupy sauce.

  There was Spam Quiche.  Yardley has eaten it.  Even though the
combination of eggs, cheese, and Spam sounds like a heart surgeon's
delight, Yardley said, "It's delicious."

  There was also Sweet and Sour Tofu and Spam.  This must be blasphemous to
the organic brown rice crowd.  "We use Spam for everything, even as a
substitute for a tuna fish sandwich," Yardley said.  "Have you put Spam
with orange cheese and toast in the broiler?  Or with cream sauce and
macaroni?"

  "You should see the supermarket when Spam is on special," Yardley said.
"Housewives fill up their shopping carts with it."

  I left Hawaii before the Spam special.  Having had this unexpected
debauch, I am quite ready to go another quarter-century without a single
bite of the stuff.  But I dared not say that out loud in Hawaii.  When I
discussed Spam with the caretaker of our campground in Kauai, his eyes lit
up.

  They were the kind of eyes you would expect for prime rib.