If you got spammed in Austin, Minnesota, you weren’t thinking about annoying emails. Hopefully, you were sitting at Kenny’s Oak Grill enjoying a delicious breakfast, like I did.
SPAM, the food, was created in 1936 by Hormel to help feed a hungry world. By combining pork shoulder, pork butt, salt, water, sugar, potato starch, and sodium nitrate, Hormel established the iconic “meat in a can,” which still sells well worldwide. The genius wasn’t the ingredients, it was that the product would be cooked in the classic shaped vacuumed can and then shipped globally. You could eat the meat right out of the container, but tastes much better warmed, and SPAM has a five-year shelf life.
Jay Hormel took over the company from his father George, the founder, in 1936. Having spent time in Europe during World War l, Jay followed in his father’s footsteps by being assigned to help package and deliver meat from the U.S. to our overseas troops. Jay learned many things dealing with mass quantities of product including de-boning most meats, saving as much as 40% of the space on cargo ships. Ice and preservation were a constant problem, with vacuum sealing a tin of meat being the answer.
So how did SPAM get its name? In 1936 Jay Hormel invented the product but not yet named it. At Jay’s annual New Year’s Eve bash he held a contest in which a $100 prize would be given to the person who came up with a clever name for Hormel’s new sealed luncheon meat.
An actor, Kenneth Daigneau (hope he had a better stage name), after who knows how many cocktails, blurted out SPAM. Some say he came up with it by combining the first two letters of spice with the last two of ham but no one really knows as the New Year rang in. What we do know is Ken left the party $100 richer, and the name stuck.
As World War II approached, the U.S. Army took note of this new, versatile product. Through the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, the government started buying and shipping massive amounts of equipment and food to our allies around the world.
Nikita Khrushchev gives Hormel credit with helping to feed his army or “they might have starved to death on the battlefield,” so tells Savile Lord the Director of the SPAM Museum in Austin.
On Hormel’s 75th birthday in a letter, former World War II Commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower chimed in, too. “I ate my fair share of SPAM along with millions of other soldiers during the war. I must confess to a few unkind remarks about it—uttered during the strain of battle. But as Commander and Chief, I believe I can still officially forgive you your only sin—sending us so much of it!”
At the peak of World War II, Hormel was selling 14 million cans of SPAM per week to the government for the war effort.
Today, remembrances of people’s reliance on SPAM during war years can still be seen in worldwide sales. Hawaii leads the globe in per capita buying because after the attack on Pearl Harbor normality stopped. Rations for the civilians were tight; this is where the unpreparedness for war was felt most. In years since, the product has remained so popular on the islands you can even get a SPAM wrap at McDonald’s!
Other countries affected by the war: South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and now China all have unique and now traditional ways of preparing a SPAM dish.
SPAM was huge in post-World War II England. The Lend-Lease program turned into the Marshall Plan where battered Europe received enormous help from the United States to rebuild; food was a major part of the aid. Many of the children in the War grew up eating a boatload of SPAM. The product became the “butt,” of jokes because it was now ingrained in British culture. Perfect material for the comedic and satirical group Monte Python. Enter stage left with their musical production of SPAMALOT, a combination of SPAM and Camelot.
This farce loosely follows their monster spoof, Monte Python and the Holy Grail, with dry British humor at its best.
Hormel is the only Fortune 500 company in Minnesota not located in the Twin Cities. You could call Austin a company town, but that’s a good thing. The company gives back in many ways. You can see and feel their impact on the community along with the politeness of the common person who calls Austin home.
Do something different: Close to the intersection of I-35 and I-90, go and hear the story that helped America through difficult times. Buy a T-shirt that reads SPAM, put it on and wait for the odd reactions and stories you’ll get.
You can’t have an iconic product like SPAM without collecting fanatics. The museum has seen a few, witnessing both weddings and proposals, with SPAM meaning something significant to each couple.
Barry thought anybody can propose at a baseball park or restaurant, “I wanted to make it memorable.” His girlfriend Karin was shocked to say the least. The museum staff was in on it; so, while passing around a tray of SPAM bites, they slipped the ring onto a stick pretzel embedded in a chunk of canned heaven that was front and center on the tray for Karin to choose. At that moment Barry got on one knee and asked Karin to spend the rest of her life with him. She grabbed the appetizer, put on the ring, ate the bite, then the pretzel and said “yes!”
There are 13 restaurants in town that offer any and all of the 15 assorted flavors of SPAM. I may have to go back. Fall is around the corner and pumpkin SPAM sounds too interesting not to try.
So, the next time you’re feeling frustrated having to delete all those irritating emails, take a break and enjoy a historic SPAM sandwich.
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