History of The Nerd Part I #19: Nerd Food#2 The Meat That Won The War

This is not going to be a just an historical examination of SPAM. No, this is a love letter. I love SPAM: the salty, porky, pink-y brick that coats your tongue in a blissful, narcotic, flavor. It’s like the first time you snorted a fat line of methamphetamine, it’s that fucking good. (No? Just me? Okay.) Spam could be sliced, diced, minced, julienne, grated, mashed, spread, fried, baked, grilled, steamed, and boiled. It’s used, to name a few, in quiches, casseroles, kabobs, fried rice, burgers, stews, and sushi. Nothing makes me feel like more of an American than slicing up a pink block and frying it up nice and crispy. The Miracle Meat fed the hungry, won a couple of wars and entered the pop culture lexicon. A million Hawaiians can’t be wrong. SPAM: if it’s good enough for Eisenhower, then it’s good enough for you! 

Spam was introduced into the American market in 1937. Jay Hormel was born into the family business, meat packing. Hormel was the first to pioneer canned ham in 1926 and when this product was imitated he added spices to make it stand out. Jay Hormel’s ham was by far above and beyond the competition in quality. The competition included lips, snouts, ears and the occasional accidental dead body. Hormel refused to use this type of meat by product, saying that if he is going to stamp his name on pig’s ass it damn well better be all ass. The canned ham business had a large waste product however and that was large quantities of pork shoulder. The shoulder was a cut of meat usually unused because it is time-consuming to remove the meat from the bone. They would sell this at low prices to grocers. All of this quality meat was going to waste and it haunted Jay as it would haunt any buisness man that needed to be richer. Jay Hormel spent many a sleepless night pondering the problem when a storm broke in his mind. He would have someone else solve the problem for him. 

Hormel asked his personal chef to create a product for him. The French Chef thought to himself, how could I get rid of all this meat and use the least amount of creativity and muscle power. The answer was simple, grind the meat down and add a fair amount of salt and cook it right in the can. The first experimental 12-oz can of luncheon meat turned out to be 8-oz of meat and 4-oz of juice. The juice, while refreshing, was a little lacking in nutritional value. As the meat cooked the cells broke down, releasing a torrent of pig juice. Hormel tried many things to reduce his juicing problem and the final solution was to mix the meat in a vacuum environment and then seal it in a vacuum seal can. Though logistical issues were taken care of Jay couldn’t rest easy yet. Hormel knew that in order for an indistinguishable, processed, geometrical, pink meat substitute to sell it was going to need a catchy name.  

He threw a lavish New Year’s Eve party for his country-club friends and family at his 170-acre Austin, Minnesota estate. Spam was served to rave responses from the guest. Jay made them pay for their liquor by making them suggest a name every time they ordered a drink. He even set up a $100 dollar cash prize for the best one. The winner was Kenneth Daigneau, radio actor and brother of Hormel Vice President Ralph Daigneau. The name was a mash-up of the words Spiced and Ham, or Ralph could have been drunk and was slurring his speech and there you have it, SPAM was born. Even though it was touted for its value and convenience, SPAM was not an instant success upon its release. It would need some Nazis to launch it to fame.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Back home in America, the nation let out a united sigh, muttering something along the lines of “Damn, sucks for you asshole” and went back to listening to The Chase and Sanborn Hour. On December Ah 1941 Japan attacked Pear Harbor, they also attacked British and Dutch holdings in Southeast Asia simultaneously, but history books show that we only really cared what happen to us. We were always a little self-absorbed as a nation. The United States is kind of like the well-meaning Uncle that never spends any time with you but drops by once in a while and give you twenty bucks. Well the attack on Pear Harbor woke up a sleeping giant, and we weren’t hitting the snooze button any longer.

Napoleon once said that war was won on meat. WWII was won on SPAM; they didn’t call it the meat that won the war for nothing. Sure, the Germans may have had better guns, tanks and scientists, the Japanese had the insane dedication to duty in killing themselves for the glory of their God Emperor, and the Italians had a laid back attitude, mopeds, and an appreciation for food and wine, but we had SPAM. That was the deciding factor; we had a can packed with salt and pork and the Krauts didn’t.

During World War II it was impossible to send fresh meat to feed the armies. SPAM came to the rescue. Hormel supplied the Allied troops with 15 million cans of SPAM per week. Soldiers, who had to endure not only bullets but a endless sea of culinary nightmares, called it “meat loaf without basic training”, “ham that didn’t pass the physical”, and “my girl friend Mary-Bell”. Some people got lonely ok. In spite of soldier complaints that they were eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, World leaders such as Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher and Nikita Khrushchev praised SPAM for its effectiveness. Khrushchev himself credited the survival of the starving Russian Army to SPAM. If you were carving up your best friend as a turkey dinner in a Russian winter (like something out of the movie Survival) you would worship Hormel for sending SPAM.

The War ended with the United States dropping a couple of nuclear bombs on Japan. There were many important reasons the US decided to take such drastic measures so late in the War. One: Japan refused the terms of surrender under the conditions issued by Truman and other Allied leaders as stated in the Potsdam Declaration. Two: It was a preventative measure to save Allied soldiers lives by forcing Japan to surrender then to invade Japan in armed conflict. Three: For shits and giggles. Spam would have been on that bombing run as well. We just unleashed nuclear hell fire on civilians, time to pop open a can, cheers. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending the war but not our love affair with SPAM.

Johnny came marching home and tried to get back to the business of getting laid and having children. As anyone that had been in military action can attest to, upon return to regular life everything just seems boring. After you saw heads explode by artillery shells you can’t exactly go back to working at the tire factory. In order to relive the psychological and physical torment these veterans demanded the pink stuff. SPAM became an American staple. During the cold war people would stock their bomb shelters with SPAM knowing that it could be stored indefinitely without refrigeration. Fathers would sleep lightly for fear that the Russkies would blow everyone to the great beyond or someone would steal their SPAM. I think there was even a Twilight Zone about this every scenario.

It is impossible to talk about SPAM and night mention the Hawaiians. SPAM proliferates in areas that:

A)    Consume a high amount of pork as apart of its common diet.

B)     Has or had a large military present and

C)    Where white people wear white, hooded sheets and burn crosses for kicks.

Hawaiians has two of the perquisites needed to have an appetite for SPAM, but they not only like it they love it in a unholy and unnatural way. However if you ever get a chance to try SPAM Musubi you will understand how they could be hypnotized by luncheon meat. It’s damn tasty. By 1959 a billion cans were sold and some say half of it was to Hawaii. Because whether cold of hot SPAM hits the spot.

SPAM has carved a small spot in our hearts and our bowels in the last seventy years. That doesn’t mean that it’s not “hip” to the way kids jive today. SPAM comes in a variety of forms to fit all the cool individuality all the kids are into today. Here is a list of SPAM products and the personality types they belong to.

SPAM Low Sodium: If you love the flavor of SPAM but you doctor tells you if you don’t lower you sodium intake your blood vessels could burst and kill you then why not try SPAM Low Sodium. It has 60 percent less sodium than regular SPAM but a full 80 percent more than that of Lot’s Wife after she was turned to a pillar of salt.

SPAM Lite: I know you eat when you’re sad or depressed but now you could do it without the guilt! That’s right SPAM Lite is for you. It has 33 percent fewer calories and 50 percent less fat. Now with SPAM Lite you could really taste your own tears as they stream into your mouth as you eat. When nobody loves you, SPAM Lite will.

SPAM Singles: You’re a man on the go. You don’t have time to open a can and slice it. If you are stuck on a subway and will kick out an emergency window to get to that of office meeting on time then you’re a SPAM Singles man. SPAM Singles because you’re a lazy asshole.

SPAM Spread: Your wife doesn’t know that you go to those clubs and bathhouses. She’s starting to suspect something however because you ask her to buy a lot of SPAM Spread. You know it isn’t right but once you’ve experience the joy of smeared meat over yourself and your special boys, how can you save your marriage?

SPAM With Cheese: You’ve got a gun in your mouth right now but you know that it’s going to be messy for your mom to clean and haven’t you put her through enough. Well SPAM With Cheese is the way for you. It’s like having Dr. Kevorkian in a can! And it’s just as fast.

SPAM With Bacon: Just go back and reread the SPAM With Cheese section.

SPAM Oven Roasted Turkey: It’s Thanks Giving and you have the whole day off from work. You think that no one is going to call and you are right. People at work doesn’t know that working at the post of office is all you have and you pray every night that they won’t fire you. You could have these same thoughts with the Thanks Giving flavor of SPAM Oven Roasted Turkey. SPAM Oven Roasted Turkey is almost as good as having a family that actually cares about you.

Of course in the information age the word SPAM doesn’t conjure up fond thoughts of salty pork but horrible thoughts of yet another email suggesting that you need to have a larger erection. So how did pink blocks of meat morph into a term for unwanted mail? It actually started before the Internet, during the wonderfully analog days of the 1970’s. It started with a group of wise-ass British guys. The Monty Python did a sketch in which a restaurant had nothing but SPAM on the menu. Also there were some Vikings that would sing a SPAM song over and over. The word SPAM was repeated so many times it bordered on annoyance. During the early days of the internet people were bombarded with junk messages that they equated the repetition of the messages with the repetition of SPAM in that old Monty Python sketch. Of course Hormel wouldn’t take the misuse of their brand name sitting down, or would they?

Hormel initially took modest legal action in the 90’s to stop the use of the word spam as a reference to junk e-mails, but really how do you stop cultural slang? The answer is that you don’t. Today Hormel takes a stand of trying not to be a whinny bitch. They are ok with people using spam in its slang from but they do ask that when you write about pink blocks of pork to follow trademark guidelines. If you notice I capped the word every single time I mentioned SPAM, well Hormel is why.

Jay Hormel must be proud to see what had become of his creation, more proud of it than his actual children. See with all theses advances in canned meat SPAM will be around far into the future. It quite possibly will be the last thing the human race consumes before we turn to cannibalism during the last days of the world. SPAM: The meat that won the war. SPAM: It’s what you’re fucking eating.