JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 743 Blog Bookstore
the 11 March 1946 issue of LIFE magazine for a depiction
of an atomic attack on NYC. It was Joe
Hormel who found me first, fistily challenging me to look at his food products,
a proud manager with his best stuff, presiding over his world of tinned meat
with steely Elmer Ganty-like broke-bone determination.
Joe ran his father’s “butcher business” and brought Spam to
the world in 1937, trying to find an end run around the shrunken Depression
food allowances, and pretty much succeeded.(Spam may also have been the first “singing
commercial” in what the LIFE article called “the earthiest, corniest and most
successful campaigns in U.S. advertising history.”) When the meat shortages spiked during WWII,
Spam found its way overseas via Lend-lease arrangements, feeding millions of British
and European people.. The consensus was
that Spam was mysterious and unpretty, but did deliver something like 15-grams of
protein per tin, which made it some sort of factor in waging the successful
war. US soldiers also received smeats
called “spam” though they weren’t necessarily Hormel’s product—just another in
a long line of monosyllabic imitators whose quality and zestyness didn’t come
close to the real thing, though this time prepared in the millions of pounds by
Army cooks who banked on the Spam name more so than the actual preparation. Or so I read.
In any event it was a real issue for Hormel who “insisted that Spam was
a high-grade compound of ham and pork shoulder” and that the [real] “dainty,
tasty Spam retained liquids in the meat, whereas the bulky Army preparations
was guilty of the worst sin the in the tinned meat world…” floating away in “loose
juice”. As a vegetarian, neither sounds
very appetizing. And the anti-Spam
stories and songs and newspaper articles and art and editorials of complaint
and disgust coming from US soldiers during the war are endless and legion and
iconic.
Spam seems impervious to the barbs and arrows and boulders
hurled its way over the last 72 years, still chugging along in its tinned meat
way, 6 billion sold units and growing.
[Note: “Spic” was
actually a shortening, and “Arf” was a dog food. I just couldn’t resist putting their names in
the title.]
Also, I include some of the recipes from the Monty Python
(170) skit on spam:
- Egg, bacon, and spam
- Egg, bacon, sausage, and spam
- Spam, bacon, sausage, and spam
- Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon, and spam
- Lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce
garnished with truffle pate, brandy, and a fried egg on top and spam.