Food History: SPAM

in hard times people have been known to turn debatably undesirable ingredients into great Cuisine I mean that's practically the thesis of this entire series and it's exactly what Koreans did with Spam in the 1950s hi I'm Justin Dodd welcome to food history today we're diving into everyone's favorite canned meat from army-based stew to spam Sushi let's get started thank you food shortages plagued Korea in the aftermath of World War II and during the Korean War and fresh meat was often impossible to find one of the most reliable ways to get something to eat was the lineup outside U.S army bases and purchase their leftovers or Salvage them from dumpsters the processed foods the military was willing to throw away which included spam hot dogs canned Franks and Beans and American cheese singles were far from home cooking but they were a good source of salt calories and protein Korean Cooks added their own spin to the ingredients by boiling them together in a stew along with kimchi gochujang a fermented red chili paste and whatever else they had access to which often included some kind of noodles the resulting recipe was distinctly Korean despite its undeniably American DNA Bude gigay or army-based Stew was basically an underground dish in the country until the 1980s with many people sourcing ingredients on the black market despite this Korea area like many other countries and territories occupied by the U.S throughout the 20th century hasn't been able to overcome its spam Obsession so how exactly did spam go from Thrifty convenience meat to one of America's most successful culinary exports before we find out let's take a look at its humble beginnings in the midwest Hormel was already a household name by the time spam arrived on the scene former slaughterhouse worker George a Hormel founded the Meat Processing Company in Austin Minnesota in 1891. following years of success selling fresh pork products the business debuted its flavor sealed ham in 1926. it was a game changer the product was made by packing ham into vacuum sealed containers and cooking the meat in the can thus keeping it fresh and flavorful until it was ready to consume it was deboned but unlike spam it was a whole piece of recognizable meat in a can boy Innovation is something huh it's introduction coincided with the start of a quiet Revolution taking place in American kitchens technological innovations like the refrigerator saved women time that they otherwise would have spent shopping for fresh groceries and preserving them through laborious methods like curing and pickling in addition to new appliances new types of food lighten the domestic load placed on Homemakers canned ham lasted months in the pantry and was ready to eat as soon as it was opened even if home Cooks gussied it up with pineapples or sugar it was still less time consuming than picking up a fresh ham from The Butcher and cooking it whole J Hormel became president of his dad's company in the late 1920s and he had some big ideas for the brand one of which was turning the waste left over from butchering pork into a brand new type of food though it's a desirable and delicious cut of meat today pig shoulder was widely considered garbage food at that time in America Hormel was discarding Mount of the scraps each year so Jay devised the plan to turn them into something consumers would want to eat the processors at Hormel did this by removing the meat from the bone grinding it into a paste and adding flavorings and preservatives the mixture was then vacuum sealed and cooked in its container just like canned ham it may have a dubious reputation today but in the beginning spam contains just five ingredients pork water salt sugar and sodium nitrate the recipe for spam remained the same until fairly recently when Hormel added potato starch to the mix the new ingredient doesn't change the flavor and is instead meant to soak up the layer of gelatin that forms when spam is cooked giving it a more appetizing appearance if any customers miss the slimier formula they grew up with they haven't been very vocal but I'll say it bring back the goo spam was packaged like Flavor sealed ham and had a similarly long shelf life but it wasn't canned ham exactly Hormel needed a name for the item that would convey its culinary promise without making any false claims so like any sensible businessman J Hormel enlisted his drunk friends according to Life Magazine he hosted a New Year's Eve party in which the price of each drink was a possible name for the new product written on a slip of paper he offered a hundred dollar prize to whoever could come up with the winning name as Hormel recalled along about the third or fourth drink they began showing some imagination an actor named kandenu received the 100 prize for his short and sweet moniker Ken was the brother of Rh Daniel a Hormel Foods vice president so we know where the name spam comes from but the jury's still out on what it means many theories have been floated over the decades with some saying it's short for shoulder of pork and ham others offer a Less Pleasant option scientifically processed animal matter the most common belief is that spam is a portmanteau of spiced and ham despite the fact that the product is neither spiced nor or a ham Hormel hasn't confirmed any of the rumors and instead claims that the true meaning is known by only a small circle of former Hormel Foods Executives I want to believe that the name has some cool secret meaning that I have to uncover like a Dan Brown novel but I'm also willing to entertain the theory that spam was just fun to say four cocktails into a New Year's party hormel's creation was not the first time someone had molded pork scraps into a block of mystery meat for centuries pennsylvanians have stretched the definition of meat with scrapple an economical breakfast item consisting of pork trimmings cornmeal and spices mushed into a congealed loaf spam was similar but its packaging made it unique like canned ham a shelf-stable can of spam was a desirable option for busy home Cooks Hormel marketed the product's versatility it could be sliced diced baked fried or eaten cold out of the container it appealed to the country's growing taste for processed convenience Foods by 1940 70 percent of urban Americans were purchasing canned Meats up from only 18 percent in 1937. spam may have been catching on in American households but the military is where it really took off during wartime when fresh meat was scarce canned meat was more than convenient it was life-sustaining in addition to being filling tasty and high in protein spam was easy to transport it didn't need to be refrigerated or heated up and most importantly it was cheap when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Lend Lease Act in 1941 authorizing the U.S to ship food and other Goods to allies during World War II Hormel began shipping 15 million cans of meat overseas per week most of which was spam the canned meat was certainly on the minds of American Service members some of whom were sick of being given this stuff for breakfast lunch and dinner private first class Lewis B glosser got so fed up with the monotonous diet that he wrote a letter to Hormel asking them to not send any spam overseas for a few weeks even if that meant he and his fellow servicemen would go hungry that's where the story outlined in the 1944 issue of yank the Army weekly takes a turn Hormel wrote back to Closter claiming that since the war started we have not sold a single can of spam to the U.S army the letter said that the Standard 12 ounce cans of spam weren't practical for army use and claimed that soldiers were eating a different luncheon meat that gi's were incorrectly calling spam can closed not exactly according to the book spam of biography by Carolyn Wyman hormel's letter kicked off a firestorm from army cooks and soldiers swearing they had prepared and eaten the real stuff it culminated with the picture of a GI standing behind a line of genuine spam tins Wyman says that Hormel looked again and determined that in 1942 the Army had ordered a bunch of spam as a substitute for government lunch and meat plus with all the spam being sent overseas as part of Lend Lease it's possible that some got diverted into U.S army hands either way wherever the U.S military went in the mid 20th century spam seemed to follow that had an unintended impact on the global culinary scene during World War II spam or some other canned product people were calling spam at least was just as popular with GI station in Hawaii as it was in Europe locals began incorporating it into their Cuisine though it was more out of necessity than love for the salty meat slaps in 1940 a federal statute was passed preventing owners of large fishing boats from obtaining licenses if they were not U.S citizens at the same time there were laws preventing Japanese immigrants from obtaining U.S citizenship a year later non-citizens were banned from using various fishing nets within one mile of Hawaii's Shoreline together these laws not only hurt Japanese Hawaiian fishermen but other Hawaiians who relied on their fishing businesses for food and jobs with the hole left in their local economy can meat like spam became a Lifeline spam stuck around in Hawaii following World War II and locals have transformed it from survival food to a symbol of cultural Pride every year the Honolulu neighborhood of Waikiki hosts Spam Jam a festival where restaurants get to show off dishes like spam musubi a Hawaiian take on Sushi featuring fried spam in place of fish wrapped around rice with Nori take it from me it's delicious the people of Hawaii consume more than 7 million cans of spam per year here more per capita than any other U.S state spam has found similar success in countries throughout Asia and Polynesia the U.S brought the product to the Philippines during their colonization of the islands today spam sea log consisting of fried spam served with eggs and garlic fried rice is a popular Filipino breakfast Bude jige may be the most popular application for spam outside of America but it was nearly no more than a blip in Korea's culinary history during Park chung-hee's rule from 1961 to 1979 South Korea imposed very high meat tariffs which basically restricted spam to the wealthiest of society the exception people who went to the black market where they could buy tax-free spam taken from American bases thanks to its high-end and Contraband status spam had evolved from something found in dumpsters to a prized ingredient in the eyes of many Koreans the fact that fresh meat was still scarce in the post-war period boosted this perception Hormel licensed the product to a South Korean manufacturer in the 1980s and it's been widely available there ever since but its luxurious reputation remains today some Koreans exchange cans of spam as gifts on holidays according to the Korea Herald spam gift sets account for 60 percent of annual sales in the country buddhaige is still a common way to consume the food and there are even restaurant chains dedicated to serving the decadent dish army-based stew is beloved across generational lines in South Korea but some diners refuse to separate it from its painful origins in an article sociologist Grace M Cho called the dish a culinary travesty and an iconic symbol of U.S imperialism but she doesn't deny the important place it occupies in Korean culture she also wrote that it represents the creativity that emerged from Devastation a legacy of the complicated relationship between Koreans and Americans the global success of spam proves that people have a knack for making lemonade out of lemons even when those lemons come in the form of slimy canned meat thanks for watching food history what is your favorite spam dish let us know in the comments and special shout out to my local dive bar swell dive for serving fried spam tacos that keep me going at 1am don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you next time

Channel: Mental Floss

Views: 25,503

Keywords: John green, mental floss, trivia, idea channel, vlog brothers

Id: lALJk29wX8w

Length: 12min 12sec (732 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 06 2023