A culinary legend: wonderful SPAM

(An article by Derek Workman in the ‘Break Up’ magazine long time ago)

Aunque hoy se le relaciona con Internet, ‘Spam’ es una marca de carne enlatada que alimentó a millones de personas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. También protagonizó un hilarante número cómico del conocido grupo británico Monty Python.

In Hawaii they eat it in sushi. In South Korea it's a gourmet treat. In the Second World War it fed millions and in 1970 it inspired one of the most famous comedy sketches of all time. Love it, loathe it, or laugh at it, Spam has become part of popular 20th century culture.

David Webb was a child in London during the war years and well remembers the pink mixture of pork and ham: “During the war you could get, you know, Spam and chips, so that everybody had a meal for something like one and sixpence in the old… in the old money. And memories I have of it was, it was a sort of a Sunday treat because in London, we lived in London during the war and after the war, and rationing was pretty severe, where you got son of two ounces of butter a week and you… you lived on bread and everything was rationed, so you… if you had something like Spam, it was a treat, and it was usually served up with a… lettuce leaf and some sliced tomatoes.

David's wife, June, has different memories of the meat in a can. Her family owned a hotel and, as a teenager, she had to take orders for 'supper' - in northern terms, a sandwich and drink usually taken about nine in the evening: I had to do the evening suppers and I had to take orders for sandwiches, so I'd go round and I'd say, "Would you like a sandwich this evening?" and they'd say "Oh, yes please, what have you got?" So in the end I started making it up and, to make it sound interesting, I'd say, "We've got ham, lamb, Spam, jam, cheese, chicken, pork, beef and tongue," but I never took an order for Spam sandwich, never! I'd no idea of Spam, how it came to be, it was just a cheap meat in a square tin that was really infuriating to open. In the end, you end up cutting yourself, don't you? And the whole lot goes in the bin then 'cause you've got blood all over it! I get home from school one day and my brother's got stitches and a plaster along his head, so I said, "What have you done there?" so he said, "I was opening a can of Spam and I cut my finger," I said "Yeah, but this is your head". He said, "Well, when I saw the blood I fainted and fell against the fridge and cut my head!"

BUT FISH LOVE IT! Having survived the war years and his diet of Spam, David isn't tempted to rush back and savour the flavour of his childhood days: I don't think anything bad of it, it was just a food you ate, you know, as a means to an end, but when you look back, you think, good God, you know, what my stomach put up with in those days, you know.

June Webb: It's artificial, it's like plastic meat that you wouldn't dream of eating, but we'd give it to the kids, I used to give it to the children when they were little, we'd have ham salad and they'd have Spam salad and the kids loved it! The processed meat might not have had many health benefits for David as a boy, but, in an unexpected way, it helped his family eat a more healthy diet. David Webb: My father was a great fisherman, he'd use Spam as a… bait for, in freshwater fishing. It went on the hook well!

Did you know?

Why is the unwanted junk mail you receive on the internet known as 'Spam’ (as in 'Spiced Pork and Ham')? The answer is to be found in the famous 'Spam sketch' from Monty Python’s Flying Circus (right, the Monty Python cast). The internet use of the word 'spamming' refers to the act of sending Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE), or 'spam’. In the Python sketch, a husband (Eric Idle) and wife (the late Graham Chapman) try to order food in a British restaurant. The menu contains such items as 'Spam, Spam, Spam, egg and Spam’ and, whenever the couple, or the waitress (Terry Jones) say these words, a chorus of Vikings (who just happen to be in the restaurant) sing "Spam, Spam, Spam…” in an increasing crescendo, drowning out all conversation. UCE, or 'spam’, similarly drowns out normal discourse on the internet.