Wednesday, December 03, 2008

SPAM

At the supermarket some weeks ago, I happened to notice a new product: SPAM LITE. I suppose it's designed for folks who want to eat mystery meat from a can but don't want as much fat as regular SPAM.

I like SPAM. My mother used to make sandwiches of SPAM, Velveeta, and Wonder Bread and cut them into animal shapes with cookie cutters. I called them my "dog meat sandwiches" because my favorite shape was that of a dog. I continues to eat SPAM until I married. Even afterwards, I bought a supply of SPAM for Mrs Vache Folle's and my first extended camping trip together. She declined to eat it and fed it to our beagles. I have not tasted SPAM since 1988, but I assume it's still the same high quality loaf of meat slurry as it always was.

In Seattle, there was an annual SPAM sculpture contest near the Kingdome I don't think canned meat is used enough as an artistic medium. Vienna Sausages have all sorts of possibilities in the visual arts. Deviled ham and potted meat would make a fine mortar to bind together SPAM, Vienna sausages and other meaty elements into an artsitic installation.

Once in law school, we made a birthday cake out of SPAM. We put cream cheese frosting on it and told the birthday boy that it was carrot cake. It took two bites for him to figure out it was meat.

The best way to prepare SPAM is to slice it and fry the slices. The same goes for bologna, another slurry based food product.

There was no SPAM in C-Rations, at least not the ones I had to eat. SPAM would have been a huge improvement. The only edible entree in the C-Ration menu was the beans and franks. The worst was something we called beef with shrapnel. Later. we got MREs which were rations in boiling bags. Of course, we were always under light discipline in the field and couldn't heat them up. The cold chicken a la king in a bag was like eating puke. I would have taken SPAM any day.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I never had it, but at least one uncle of mine likes it. Anyone who has canned tuna or any other canned animal product can't make fun of Spam, I guess. But I just assumed it would be too salty for my taste, and that I wouldn't like the texture.

Last year, I got to see Spamalot on Broadway. Entertaining, but if that is a Tony Award-winning musical, either the Tonys are overrated or modern musicals on the whole suck, with Spamalot one of the best of the lot.