"How Spam Became a Staple of Asian Cuisine" Topic

"One of my favorite dishes to eat while growing up was budae-jjigae, which literally means "army base stew" in Korean. Typically, the stew's bubbling broth fuses traditional Korean flavors—the spice of gochugaru, the earthiness of mushrooms, the pungency of kimchi—with an unlikely yet essential addition: Spam…"

Main page

link

Armand

Spam beautiful Spam!.

"How Spam Became a Staple of Asian Cuisine" Topic

Post-war poverty:

Spam has no expiration date when stored at proper conditions; rather, it has a "best by" date that typically spans three years after the can's manufactured date.

Appalachian poverty is why it was popular where I grew up.

I think a lot of the criticism of SPAM comes from people looking down their nose at "poor people food". Despite that, it has a lot of flavor (mostly from pork fat), which is a good compliment to a majority diet of flavorless and nearly-flavorless grains, the same way exotic spices are. And with a lot of protein and fat, if you perform arduous work for many hours a day every day, it's not a bad diet choice … as opposed to living a mostly sedentary life. It's also farily filling. The meat and fats digest relatively slowly making you feel full for longer.

"No expiration date" makes it cheap food – you don't have to refrigerate and basically never throw it out for going bad. This interacts poorly if you live a mostly sedentary poverty life, similarly to potato chips (not invented for, but popularized by military use as a high calorie/long shelf life food for people working really hard every day) and similar snacks.

You know, the Hawaiian restaurant on the other side of town serves several Spam dishes. Haven't been there in a while and it's almost lunch time . . .

Grelber

Thanks

Armand

There are a several Asian versions of Spam that are pretty good. My wife often uses it in her fried rice.

I grew up in Spam Town, USA: Austin, Minnesota, where Spam was created, and still made today. They built a Spam Museum there, a number of years ago -- I need to visit it one of these days.

Spam, and the iron mines of Minnesota, played a critical role in WW II: 70% of the iron used in the USA's military machine came from Minnesota's Iron Range mines; Spam was served to GI's as a mainstay in their diets in the field, in every theater of the war, as it was a main supply of meat for soldiers in their diets.

Can't post the Wikipedia page on Spam's link here, TMP keeps trashing the link address, sorry. Do a search on Wikipedia for Spam food, to learn about its history. Here is a page on the Iron Range. Unfortunately, it does not discuss its contribution and importance to WW II.

Spam is made from the pork scraps and cut-off's, ground up, and processed. It is something I grew up with. I rarely eat it anymore, as it is very high in salt, but I enjoy it occasionally, when I can. I consider it quite tasty, as an occasional treat to indulge in, a couple of times a year, when I visit relatives, in Austin, and we eat at a restaurant that serves it in some of their dishes. Cheers!

Like a lot of things GIs brought this "delicacy" to Asia after the Wars[like Baseball to Japan!] Spam was one of them …

FWIW – spent 22 months in the ROK, '84-'85. With a forward deployed Mech Bn of 2ID. I never saw any GIs or Koreans eating Spam ?!? Maybe it was still around further South. As we were on or just South of the DMZ.

Frankly I was not sad to never see any Spam during my time in the ROK. Of course, I and my comrades never were looking for it either. And it certainly was never served in our mess halls … 😁
[Thank God!]

I love the "Tocino" flavour.

Much like Etotheipi, my childhood experience of Spam can of being oldest of six kids of a small town merchant whose cash flow was never assured – and as noted, it keeps for a really long time

Thanks also…

Armand

I think a lot of the criticism of SPAM comes from people looking down their nose at "poor people food".

Well I never looked at it that way. Even today a can of SPAM is around $4.00 USD … "Too rich for my blood!" …

In Honolulu for 5 days and no spam! Looking forward to rectifying that tomorrow.

Of course, we get spam onigiri in California and my wife sometimes makes spam fried rice or spam with okra, so I'm not really deprived.

😯

In Honolulu for 5 days and no spam! …. Tremendous sin!… the same as visiting Italy and not trying pasta or pizza… or going to New York and not trying a Hot Dog in the street… (smile)

Armand

Oh BTW … Pizza does not have ham and pineapple on it !!!! 🍕🐷🍍

My ancestors would be rolling over in their graves!!! 🧟‍♂️👻

Ha!Ha!…

Armand