Spam: Filling bellies since WWII
Posted by Stephanie Co & Todd Smith on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009Tags for this Article: food, fun, instruction, Meats, recipes, Spam
Photo courtesy of "inuyaki.com" on Flickr
It seems that Spam is a “love it or hate it” ingredient; it makes some smile and it makes many people gag, but it’s a selection that Steph and I often consider at our local haunts. It can be found boiled over a bowl of noodles, fried in an old-style breakfast, or even baked into a number of casseroles, chilies, or dare I say, desserts? Having said that, the versatility of Spam is a little troubling, but it’s also quite remarkable considering that people have eaten it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner worldwide for over 70 years.
If you’d like to expand your Spam knowledge, check out this comprehensive list of Spam-based recipes on the official Spam site.
Great. Now I’m being spammed by Foodists. :9
As a wildland firefighter I’ve developed a certain love for Spam. It lasts forever riding around in your line gear and is always there in a pinch when you end up staying out on the line longer than planned. It can be cooked (I mean heated) right in the can or just spooned up cold (how many meat products do you know that can be cut with a spoon!) Here’s a classic recipe I learned from a smokejumper in Montana:
1 can of Spam diced in the can. The easiest way to do this is to pop the spam out, make the horizontal cuts, then return the spam to the can and make the vertical cuts. Minus a few chunks to make room for the other ingredients.
Add to this a little “beverage base, orange” powder from an MRE (gatorade would also work just fine). squeeze and shake the can to get the powder down into the Spam.
Add a little water to moisten the beverage base powder, return the lid and pop into the nearest hot spot. Turn the can occasionally to avoid burning. It’s ready to eat once the beverage base starts to crust up real good.
Variations on this are endless. The most obvious is switching up the flavor of beverage base… I tend to avoid the blue colored one because the color it makes things is a little weird, I can tell you though that it tastes just dandy.
My favorite though is to cut out the beverage base, and use blackberry jam and crushed red pepper flakes (both also available in MRE’s).
I can’t understand why people have such an aversion to spam. How much different is it from a sausage, weiner, or ham loaf? It’s all ass ‘n snout anyhow!
Waste not want not.
In Asia they’re a staple. You can have it fried with eggs, in rice, as a side to instant noodles.. the options are endless!
@Sazerac: because with sausages, etc., an effort is made to make them taste good. Spam tastes of lard and salt. No thanks.
This site just made my year.
I’ve been searching around for info on this. I am feeling good now that I ran across this webpage.