What do you do with all the left over meat from a pig that no one wants after the choice bits have been taken off?
If you are George A. Hormel Company, you form it into a loaf, add a few spices and call it Spam.
Seeing thousands of pig shoulders (the parts no one wants) piling up in the warehouse back in 193, one of the company's executives came up with a novel idea. Why not chop the meat up, add spices, a little bit of the better meats and gelatin made from the pigs leftover skin and bones? It could be formed into a brick, put in a can and remain edible for months without refrigeration.
They tried it and it worked. Hormel's Spiced Ham was born.
But other pork packers, seeing the success Hormel was having getting rid of their leftover piggie parts, started selling their own piggie loafs. Hormel offered $100 for anyone who could come up with a good name to set their meat brick apart on the shelf. Spam was submitted by the brother of one of the employees. Spiced Ham = Spam.
Everyone claims to hate the stuff, but about 30% of all American households have a can in the cupboard right now. Even so, chances are the "pink brick of meat encased in a gelatinous coating" as one writer described it, would not still be around today if not for a little thing called World War II.
Cheap, portable and never needing refrigeration, Spam was the ideal product to send into battle. It was nicknamed "the ham that didn't pass its physical" and many GI's swore they would never touch the stuff after they got home.
They lied. Sales of Spam shot up dramatically in the years after the war. Today Americans consume 3.8 cans of the stuff every second, or 122 million cans a year. That's more than 5 billion cans since 1937.
Contrary to urban legend, there are no pigs lips, eyes, ears, tails or naughty bits in Spam - just pork shoulder, ham, salt, sugar and sodium nitrate.
Hormal, flush with the success of Spam released at least more slightly less successful canned meats - Spiced Chicken and Spiced Fish. Perhaps their failure was due to the names - and I am NOT making this up - "Spicken" and "Spish."
I hope you enjoyed those facts. I am Alton Rush and I love hot foods and spicy cooking.
If you are George A. Hormel Company, you form it into a loaf, add a few spices and call it Spam.
Seeing thousands of pig shoulders (the parts no one wants) piling up in the warehouse back in 193, one of the company's executives came up with a novel idea. Why not chop the meat up, add spices, a little bit of the better meats and gelatin made from the pigs leftover skin and bones? It could be formed into a brick, put in a can and remain edible for months without refrigeration.
They tried it and it worked. Hormel's Spiced Ham was born.
But other pork packers, seeing the success Hormel was having getting rid of their leftover piggie parts, started selling their own piggie loafs. Hormel offered $100 for anyone who could come up with a good name to set their meat brick apart on the shelf. Spam was submitted by the brother of one of the employees. Spiced Ham = Spam.
Everyone claims to hate the stuff, but about 30% of all American households have a can in the cupboard right now. Even so, chances are the "pink brick of meat encased in a gelatinous coating" as one writer described it, would not still be around today if not for a little thing called World War II.
Cheap, portable and never needing refrigeration, Spam was the ideal product to send into battle. It was nicknamed "the ham that didn't pass its physical" and many GI's swore they would never touch the stuff after they got home.
They lied. Sales of Spam shot up dramatically in the years after the war. Today Americans consume 3.8 cans of the stuff every second, or 122 million cans a year. That's more than 5 billion cans since 1937.
Contrary to urban legend, there are no pigs lips, eyes, ears, tails or naughty bits in Spam - just pork shoulder, ham, salt, sugar and sodium nitrate.
Hormal, flush with the success of Spam released at least more slightly less successful canned meats - Spiced Chicken and Spiced Fish. Perhaps their failure was due to the names - and I am NOT making this up - "Spicken" and "Spish."
I hope you enjoyed those facts. I am Alton Rush and I love hot foods and spicy cooking.
About the Author:
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