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Related Stories. America Needs to Get Back to Facts. Already a print subscriber? It's to help prevent a huge amount of liquid from being released when the meat is cooked. You're familiar enough with the basics, like salt and sugar. But what is the point of some of the other stuff?
First, sodium nitrite. You may have heard that condemned in popular media as carcinogenic, but according to the World Cancer Research Fund via the BBC , it's not so much the compounds as it is the prep and cooking methods. When nitrites are mixed into something high in amino acids then cooked, that's when nitrosamines form and that's what has been linked to cancer. So, why include them?
They prevent the growth of bacteria that can cause food poisoning if it's ingested, and no one wants their Spam with a side of botulism. They're also what gives Spam that distinctive pink color, thanks to a chemical reaction that happens between the nitrites and the protein in the meat. What about potato starch? Wired says that's included because the long cooking time of Spam would otherwise leave the contents incredibly dry, and the potato starch helps preserve moisture as well as, LiveScience says, hold the whole thing together.
And that's a recent addition to the recipe, only showing up in to also help get rid of that unappetizing layer of gelatin via Smithsonian. And why do they describe it as "pork, with ham"? That describes the two cuts of meat used: pork shoulder and ham, which is the preserved and cured leg of the pig. Here's where things get a little weird. The still-raw pork mixture is funneled through a few filling machines until it gets to the cans. According to How Products are Made , a machine scoops up the raw Spam and pushes it into the can from the bottom.
It's sealed, stamped, and sent on its way. Clearly, they're not raw when you get them, so what gives? According to Wired , vacuum-sealing the raw pork product first and cooking it in the cans is what gives Spam that super-long shelf life and makes it pretty much perfect for keeping on the shelf until you get that once-every-few-years craving. Or, you know, until the world ends and civilization as we know it crumbles around us.
And it took a long time to get that canning process right. Before Hormel's extensive experimentation, canned meat would end up as dry inside but still surrounded in water. Hormel figured out not just the canning process, says How Stuff Works , but also the right amount of salt and the right temperature to cook at.
After the cans of Spam are, well, canned, their next stop is a massive hydrostatic cooker. The scale is crazy: the machine is a full six stories tall, says How Products are Made , and it's full of very, very hot water. The cans of raw Spam approach on a conveyor, and are pushed onto a shelf 24 at a time. That shelf moves the cans through a series of chambers within the cooker, where they're cooked, and sterilized, then washed, and finally cooled.
There are 11 chambers, and by the time cans complete their journey from beginning to end they're almost ready to be sent on their way. Not only is it a huge machine, but it's fast, too: 33, cans an hour can be processed through the cooker. That seems like a crazy amount, but it's keeping up with an almost insane amount of Spam sold.
According to LiveScience , Hormel tries to keep up with an estimated three cans sold every second. After that, they're labeled, boxed, and shipped to a grocery store near you.
Everyone's familiar with those distinctive blue and yellow cans, right? Absolutely, and that's what makes it so surprising that there's an extra step that goes into the making of Spam in South Korea: it's often packaged up as part of a gift set.
Japanese immigrants to Hawaii are credited with inventing Spam musubi, a Hawaiian version of onigiri that binds a cooked slab of Spam to rice with a piece of nori. Touted for its portability, it's still widely available in Hawaiian convenience stores as an easy grab-and-go lunch or snack.
Diner staple loco moco, a dish featuring rice topped with a hamburger patty, fried egg, and brown gravy often features Spam as an additional protein.
And the meat pops up in everything from fried rice to omelets to saimin the Hawaiian noodle soup dish. Today, Spam fervor in Hawaii has sustained a decade-old Spam festival in Waikiki, where chefs and Spam-lovers gather to appreciate and explore the lunchmeat's role in Hawaiian culture.
Earlier this spring, the 12th-annual Spam Jam saw more than 24, attendees converge to sample dishes like Spam lettuce wraps, Spam and corn chowder, Spam-and-basil on Sicilian-style pizza, and a dessert dubbed "Mom's Puerto Rican Spam flan. Like crazy," says festival co-founder Karen Winpenny, who has memories of the ingredient dating back to when she was eight or nine years old.
According to Winpenny, the first edition of Spam Jam was devised as a way to get local Waikiki residents to intermingle with tourists and vice versa. Something new. Most importantly, the event has emerged as a way to raise money and awareness for the Hawaii Food Bank. The Hawaii Food Bank's most-requested item is cans of Spam. The story found its way across the Pacific, with Winpenny bringing it up during our conversation: "I read an article: I guess New York's starting to do something with Spam, too.
But Spam on upscale restaurant menus is not a recent phenomenon. James Beard Award-winner Alan Wong has experimented with a housemade version dubbed "Spong" , which shows up in breakfast dishes at his Honolulu restaurant Pineapple Room. His new spot, POT, offers a version of budae jjigae. And in , Vinny Dotolo and Jon Shook of LA's Animal created a cult classic mash-up with their Spam and foie gras loco moco, re-imaging the Hawaiian dish with Carolina gold rice, hamburger patty, foie gras, and Spam straight from the can.
The spam-and-foie loco moco, which Dotolo says was inspired by his curiosity toward Hawaiian food, soon became an icon: When Animal was profiled later that year in both the New York Times and The New Yorker , its use of Spam and foie in one dish became the emblem of the restaurant's " giddy, sophisticated-stoner sensibility.
Animal's Spam and foie gras loco moco. Thanks to California's foie gras ban, the dish is currently off the menu at Animal, but Dotolo says the dish was reflective of "who we are in Los Angeles. But Animal's take on the dish was bestowed with an air of "punk attitude" in the press, its mash-up of highbrow, lowbrow, and a surfer's appetite considered a new approach to fine dining. The use of Spam — the most processed of processed meats — seemed to be central to the digression.
Dotolo is one of those chefs, admitting he first ate Spam as an adult, experiencing musubi for the first time. As Spam lands on more restaurant menus, researchers at Hormel are watching closely to see how culinary trends can influence new Spam flavor profiles. Behne notes that Teriyaki Spam, which launched in Hawaii in Fall , is "already the number four variety of Spam on the island.
The comedy group's now-iconic "Spam" sketch birthed not only the name of Monty Python's musical but also the internet usage of "spam" to describe annoying, indiscriminately sent emails. Later this year, the museum will temporarily close to move into a new space, losing about 3, square feet of space in exchange for a downtown Austin location. The move, Behne says, will hopefully draw more tourist dollars to the Austin community. Not counting those working for the Spam Museum and other offshoot businesses, Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam, employs more than 4, people in the Austin area.
That excites me too. It just kind of shows versatility of [Spam] — both ends of the spectrum. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
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