SPAMival

I love SPAM. As you scrunch your face up and make noises of distain, let me encourage you to search the mental spreadsheet of your culinary delights and see how many nasty, fatty, sulfite-laden, heart attacks in a dish you have listed there. Chicken-Fried Steak? Menudo? Chicken Feet? How about the Salumi that is now sweeping the San Francisco culinary scene. Fois-gras may be snooty delicacy, but part of it’s enjoyment is our perverse delight in knowing its made from the liver of a tortured goose. I grew up in Hawaii, the largest per-capita consumer of SPAM in the nation. SPAM nitrates course through my veins. Last weekend I was walking through Safeway and saw SPAM on sale for about half price. I sent a text message to all my Hawaii and Philippines ex-pat friends. “Alert! Spam on sale at Safeway. Buy Now!” Levon sent a text back, “I love SPAM. We should have a SPAM party.” The evite was sent out the following day.

The party was a SPAM cookoff. I declared 5 categories:

Best Tasting
Best Presentation
Most Creative
FOBulicous
Best Adaptation of a Classic

Each person (or group) would submit their entry and then everyone present would vote on the winners.

The day of the party I set about to create the right visual mood. I placed 18 cans of SPAM around the apartment with little tea lights on top for ambience.


I also went to Keola Beamer’s website to copy SPAM haiku, which I printed on pink paper and posted around the apartment. My favorite;


The décor done, I set about to create my two dishes. First up; SPAM Christmas cookies. Shit sounds NASTY, huh? They weren’t really cookies, but sliced SPAM that I cut into shapes with cookie cutters- gingerbread men, elephants and dradles, and then fried. I use “icing” of bbq sauce and ketchup to decorate the shapes. Unfortunately the brown and red color didn’t stand out against the dark pink of the meat. One of my guests, Nicole, suggested that I use mayonnaise and food coloring next time. Brilliant idea… but next time? I’m not making these again!


My second dish was SPAM cornbread muffins which I thought would be a hit because I’ve had delicious cornbread muffins with bacon. Truly satisfying savory dishes are about finding the right carb/fat/salt combination. Bagel, cream cheese, lox… Hashbrowns, eggs, sausage… Pizza, cheese, pepperoni… SPAM cornbread muffins would adequately offer this triple threat of flavor. Unfortunately, I jacked it up. I popped the muffins in the oven just as my first guests arrived then set about pouring vodka and telling stories. The muffins were well blackened by the time I remembered them.

The guests began to arrive and create a critical mass at the party. I think that the idea of a SPAM dish contest created a buzz beyond just what I was feeling from a few vodka-cranberrys. People seemed excited and intrigued. There were gasps and groans and laughter as each dish was presented. We exchanged stories of SPAM from our childhoods. We discussed it’s history. We argued over the definition of the acronym. I was shocked and awed by the unifying force of luncheon meat. One SPAM to rule us all, one SPAM to bind us.

Mita got a little out of control with the double entendre of this haiku:

Pink tender morsel
glistening with salty gel
what the hell is it?

I'm getting warmed up here:


We also had fun taking the SPAM EXAM on the official SPAM Fan Club website. A mild argument broke out at one point in the evening… The trivia test posed the question, “What wine is best served with SPAM?” Whoa! An opinion question served up as fact. The choices were Syrah, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling. Francesco and I were adamant that we would want to pair it with a red, whose tannins could cut through the fat of the meat. But we were bested by two wine neophytes. James and Levon asked what the different wines were like and then decided that Riesling was the answer because the sweetness would balance the saltiness. According the website, James and Levon were right! But I’m not quite ready to go out like a punk on this topic. Ghetto food and wine is my area of specialty. I’m contacting some experts and will re-post at a later date.

At long last Jeff and I tallied the ballots. Here are the winners:

Best Tasting:
Jeff Probart’s SPAM Stroganoff. He made it as a joke, but the joke accidentally worked. The creaminess of the noodles perfectly balanced the saltiness of the SPAM pieces. Again- a perfect carb/fat/salt combination found in the wide noodles, cream, and SPAM. The dish was simple, soothing and homey. It had a Jungian resonance with us. It seemed to be the creation of some pan-ethnic Mama figure that exists in our collective subconscious. Thanks Mama Jeff! This dish also won the first runner-up award for Best Presentation. Apparently all you have to do for nice presentation nowadays is stick 4 green onion stalks in the bowl.

Here's Jeff's recipe exactly as he wrote it. There's even something motherly about his recipe- especially the "big bag of noodles"

SPAManoff
1 big bag of egg noodles (8oz or 16 oz?)
4 Tablespoons olive oil
2 cans SPAM
1 red onion
2 cans Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup or Cream of Mushroom soup with Garlic
1 ½ cups sour cream
1 bunch green onions (shallots)
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and Pepper

Thinly slice 6-7 rings of red onion and put them in a pot of water. Boil pot of water…enough for 2/3 of bag of egg noodles. Mix olive oil, onion powder and garlic powder in skillet over medium heat. Dice 1st can of SPAM into ½ to ¼ inch cubes and fry in skillet filled with heated olive oil until browned. Remove cubes from skillet and drain. Cover cubes with foil to keep them hot. Finely chop 2nd can of SPAM and put to the side until later.

When water boils add ¾ bag of egg noodles into the water and onion rings and cook until desired texture. Drain noodles and red onion rings. Place 2nd can finely chopped SPAM in microwave and heat for 1 ½ to 2 minutes…enough to heat/cook the SPAM. Add finely chopped SPAM and cubed SPAM to egg noodles along with the 2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup and 1 ½ cups sour cream. Stir mixture into egg noodles until noodles are evenly covered. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour entire mixture into serving bowl. Garnish with 2-3 finely chopped green onions. Add 4-6 whole green onions vertically along the edges of the serving bowl to provide height and color.

Best Presentation:
Joe Griss’s Tropical Udon Noodles. Joe is my best friend. Joe was a vegetarian. Joe eats meat now. I like Joe more now. It was hard for a committed carnivore like myself to have a leaf-licker best friend. I’m so glad he’s converted- apparently far enough to nail a great SPAM dish! His entry consisted of Udon noodles, fresh pineapple, a coconut milk base, and SPAM. It was a delicious combination that also won him first runner-up in the taste category. But then he outdid himself by serving it inside the pineapple shell. I’ve seen this at a few luaus, but usually the pineapple is cut lengthwise. Joe decapitated the stem and then scooped (probably a painstaking process) the flesh out of the fruit, later replacing it with noodle salad. We appreciated his effort and sassy style enough to give him the award.



Noodles with Pineapple, Ginger and Chilies (serves 4)
10 ounces dried udon noodles
1/2 of a fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into 1.5 inch rings
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
4 tablespoons coconut milk
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 ripe mango or 2 peaches, finely diced
freshly ground black pepper
2 scallions, finely sliced
2 red chilies, seeded and finely shredded
mint leaves for garnish

1. Cook the noodloes in a large saucepan of boiling water until tender, follwoing the directions on the package. Drain. Rinse under cold water. Drain.

2. Place the pineapple rings in a flameproof dish, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar and broil for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly. Dice.

3. Mix the limejuice, coconut milk and fish sauce in a salad bowl. Add the remaining brown sugar with the ginger and garlic. Whisk well. Add noodles and pineapple.

4. Add the mango (or peaches) and toss. Sprinkle on the scallions, chilies and mint leaves before serving.


Most Creative:
Jodi, my Jewish sister of the traveling pants, and her boyfriend Hot-John used Oven Roasted Turkey SPAM for their dish. This SPAM version isn’t quite kosher, but it’s a little known fact that Turkey SPAM is halal and is enjoyed by SPAM loving muslims the world over. I’m not kidding. So THIS must be what Filipino muslims eat! I wonder if Turkey SPAM is a huge hit in Mindanao. Jodi and Hot-John put on gloves so as not to touch the “icky-meat” when they created their SPAM animal parts sculpture. In a tribute to the various leftover pieces that we assume go into SPAM, they created mini-sculptures of hooves, pig snouts, lips, and other animal body parts. They ran away with the most creative award, but it might be because NO ONE TOUCHED their dish… so unlike other dishes- it was completely whole at voting time.


Jodi and Hot-John are not the first to try SPAM sculpture. Click here to see a SPAM and tofu version of Yosemite Valley.

FOBulicious (FOB = Fresh Off the Boat)
I designed this category to celebrate the appeal of our favorite luncheon meat amongst immigrant and international communities. Like racism, gonorrhea and Kentucky Fried Chicken, it’s often the least desirable elements of American culture that take the strongest hold in the countries we colonize. SPAM was used extensively by the American military because of its portability and shelf life. Thus SPAM has become very popular in countries where there has been a strong American military presence; South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam. I wonder if 15 years from now we'll see an abundance of Turkey SPAM in Iraqi cuisine. The hilarious thing is, the FOBulicious award went to… a white guy! Eric Scavetta won with his SPAM musubi. Eric is an architect and it showed in his presentation. Each rice cake was tightly snuggled in its nori coat, and the various musubi were arranged in a swirl around the plate with dots of green paste for color. I asked Eric if the paste was wasabi. He responded, “no, it’s just for décor.” I didn’t pursue. I voted this dish for the best presentation category but others apparently thought there was something pleasantly third-world about it’s appeal.

Best Adaptation of A Classic
Levon Suga’s SPAM Fried Rice. I tried to disqualify Levon because he bought the fried rice from a Chinese Restaurant and added SPAM and green onion. He was silent about it, but I called him out and his face turned a slightly SPAMish shade. When we were tallying the votes, Jeff made an excellent point that technically speaking, Levon did “adapt” the dish. I was too drunk to come up with a counterpoint, so Levon took home an award. “His” fried rice was quite tasty. It was pleasantly salty with the soy, garlic and oyster sauce flavors perfectly covering each grain. There were nice lean bits of char siu to match the flavor of SPAM bits. All it lacked was chopped scrambled egg to make it a true Hawaiian fried rice.

Special impromptu awards were given to Jodi for “Best Jewish SPAM entry” and to Arthur for even trying to make a SPAM dessert. His pineapple-spam upside down cake was not as gross as it sounds… but it doesn’t need to be made again.

Thanks to Chris for helping me make the award certificates and to Jeff for making the ballots and the blue ribbon awards. Thanks to all the guests who came and participated with such irreverent style (is there any other type of style); Mita, Edilbert, Ethan, Ethan’s boyfriend of the month, Arthur, Joe, Jeff, Francesco, James, Jodi, Hot-John, Matthew, Levon, Nicole, Alan, Ray, Jaedon, Rene, Sophie, Derrick (my childhood friend newly connected!) and of course my baby Christopher.