Thursday, June 21, 2007

Spam, it's pink and oval


Lyrics courtesy of Save Ferris.


I recently got a coupon in the mail for this. I don't know why someone thought this was a good idea, but Spam in a POUCH? A single serving of Spam. A Spamlette, if you will.

Just so you know, this is not a sponsored post (although, if there's someone out there who wants to pay me to write, email is in the profile!!), because I'm really not crazy about this stuff. It's very popular down here in the South, though, as it is a pork product, and we do love our pork down here. It's also apparently more popular in Hawaii than in any other state in the union, partly because it was so ubiquitous during WWII. My mother-in-law said they seemed to serve it almost as much as macaroni salad while she was there.

The last time I came anywhere near Spam, I was doing a morning show in Charleston, SC. I had recently found myself hosting the show alone, and our program director thought he'd be helpful by giving me a topic to talk about, rather than us discussing the news of the day. That topic : Spam, the food, not the e-mail trash. His brilliant idea was to get me to eat the stuff on the air.

What I didn't know at the time, was that I was already 3 weeks pregnant, and had just started to feel the first effects of morning sickness. He waved that open can under my nose, and I just about tossed my cookies into his lap. There followed after that a wave of phone calls from people extolling the virtues of the wobbly pink brick, including a lady who said she always made Spam salad on crackers as an hors d'oeuvre, and no one knew it wasn't really ham. I got to meet her a few weeks later at a remote, when she brought me a Spam cookbook. She would call the show once a week and refer to herself as the "Spam Lady". She was always very sweet, but thankfully never brought me any of that Spam Salad. Perhaps my ever-expanding waist line and descriptions of dealing with morning sickness during our morning show kept her at bay.

I still have the cook book, by the way, it was one of the first books my child pulled off the shelf to look at before she could read, I think she was about 8 months old or so. I still can't help but wonder if that first whiff of Spam during my early pregnancy is what turned off the four-year-old to meat.

8 comments:

the rotten correspondent said...

Eeww...Spam. My husband, who lived in Hawaii for a few years as a kid, loves Spam, and fondly remembers his grandmother sticking cloves and pineapple on a chunk of the stuff and roasting it just like a ham. Makes my stomach get all queasy just thinking about it. And morning sickness has nothing to do with it!

Anonymous said...

I dislike Spam myself. It does have the distinction of being cooked in the tin (sorry, can). That was the secret of Spam.

Anonymous said...

I have never tasted Spam. I try to stay away from pork by-products, or by-products of any type. I do know people who like it though. One friend likes it sliced and fried in butter like bologna.....ummmm fried bologna sandwiches.

-_- said...

I hate spam !!!

nice work
I like it
thank you and have a nice day
:))

Anonymous said...

lol, 'tossed your cookies on his lap'!! hahaha

Spam has become popular in cyber space as well, my email even has a spam folder :P

Very cute post :D

Have a lovely weekend Jenny :)

Jen said...

Now auntie barbie, Spam is actually just pork shoulder, chopped, mixed with stuff and then pressed into those stupid cans. It's then heated to 212 degrees Farenheit in the can. And fried bologna??? Down here they call that a "hillbilly hamburger". Yech.

LOL, taqdeer, no one except close members of my family have ever called me Jenny. It sounds like a cheerleader's name. And I'm definitely not a cheerleader ;p

Anonymous said...

It's the "stuff" that I worry about, and bologna fried is the only way I will eat it.
Oh, and Tagdeer, don't let "Jenny" kid you. She has a cheerleader hiding inside her waiting to get out.

Anonymous said...

hehehe ;)