This Day in History: SPAM, the luncheon meat, was introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation on this day in 1937. SPAM is chopped pork shoulder meat with ham, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrite, unless of course you get some other variation of it. The word SPAM is short for "spiced ham" not "something posing as meat." SPAM was invented in the depression era, a low cost food item which Margaret Thatcher once referred to as a "wartime delicacy" [Nearly 100 million pounds of SPAM were consumed by the Allied troops during World War II.]
Spam has long had a somewhat dubious reputation in the United States and (to a lesser degree) United Kingdom as a poverty food. The image of Spam as a low cost meat product gave rise to the Scottish colloquial term "Spam valley" to describe certain affluent housing areas where residents appear to be wealthy but in reality may be living at poverty levels.
Hormel produces 44,000 cans of SPAM every hour. SPAM is big in Hawaii and the McDonald's restaurants there feature SPAM on the menu. Hawaiian Burger King restaurants began serving Spam in 2007 to compete with the local McDonald's chains. In Hawaii, Spam is so popular that it is sometimes referred to as "The Hawaiian Steak". There is even an annual Spam-themed festival on the island of Oahu that takes place every spring, known as the "Waikiki Spam Jam". Local chefs and restaurants compete to create new Spam-themed dishes, which are then sold in a massive street fair on Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki.
Believe it or not, there is a SPAM Museum in Austin, MN
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