SPAM: Miracle in a can.
True confession: Dan still thinks SPAM is a real food, and stories featuring the eye-catching blue and yellow can stop him in his tracks. As on the front page of last Wednesday's Savor section of the Ledger.
Can he be the only Plainfielder of whom this is true?
My taste for the famous meat product goes back to my childhood, while my father, one of the 'greatest generation', was in the Navy. He was a SeaBee, the unit famed for quickly building the airstrips on far-flung Pacific islands that allowed the U.S. Navy to hopscotch across the thousands of miles that brought it to within striking distance of Japan's home islands.
SPAM was one of the meals my mother prepared for me and my brother while he was in the service. She always gave us the impression we were getting a special treat, and the knowledge that it was a budget-stretcher was gained much later in life.
SPAM became one of several 'comfort foods' which bring back those childhood memories of a world at war and a home front with a considerably tightened belt. Along with steaming boiled rice served in a soup bowl with milk and a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar, or the no-egg chocolate cake she would whip up with mayonnaise as a substitute.
Anyway, back to the Ledger. The story was credited to McClatchy's wire service.
Thinking to put a link on CLIPS (you know my twisted sense of humor), I scouted the Ledger's website and its internal search, failing to turn up the article.
Then I Googled a few words of the text, which usually turns up several newspapers that have carried an article, and would provide me with a link.
It did.
But, lo and behold, the article originally appeared in July 2008 (see here). And with different recipes entirely.
I set the whole idea aside for later, when I read the Ledger story again, carefully, and found that it has two threads -- SPAM is inexpensive (who knew?), and has been eaten by President Obama in a Hawaiian incarnation called 'SPAM Musubi'.
Obama snack: SPAM Musubi.
So, the Ledger shows us that on the Internet nothing every really disappears, no matter how many times it is recycled, AND that it can chop up the parts and blend two old stories (last summer's SPAM story and last December's story on Obami and his musubi) into a completely NEW news product.
Sort of like the way real SPAM is made.
Me? I'm going to whip up some SPAM Musubi.
- SPAM: "Miracle in a can"
- Huffington Post: "Obama's Hawaiian Lunch: History, recipes and video"
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1 comments:
Did you know that Hawaii has the highest consumption per capita of any other state in the Union???? For me, SPAM is still an odd ball blow back to the past. As a child I hated it when I opened my lunch to find that my mother had packed a Spam sandwich for my meal. Now... I look at SPAM as the item that I will have an odd ball craving for MAYBE once a year...so I buy it, stare at the can for months in my pantry and then break down and eat it. The first few bites are delicious and satisfying..by the end of the sandwich I am more than bored with the taste and know I have satisfied the odd ball craving. Thanks for the good memories and personal laugh at myself.
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