There is actually more to Spam than you know about. It has quite the history, so let's take a look at what you should know about Spam.
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00:00Spam is everywhere, but how much do you really know about the world's most ubiquitous mystery
00:05meat?
00:06From turning the tide in World War II to saving the population of Hawaii, here's a look at
00:10what you should really know about SPAM.
00:13There are plenty of guesses to what SPAM actually stands for.
00:17Something posing as meat.
00:18Specially processed American meat.
00:20Slimy processed anemic mucus?
00:23But the real answer is even more mysterious.
00:25Nobody actually knows.
00:27According to the official SPAM website, the truth was probably only known to a few former
00:31Hormel executives, but considering SPAM was invented way back in 1937, the secret is probably
00:37lost to us forever.
00:39We do know how it was named, though.
00:41According to Nidorama, Jay Hormel threw a party and told guests they'd each get a free
00:46drink if they wrote down a potential name for the new canned meat.
00:50One of the partygoers blurted out the name SPAM, and the rest is history.
00:54Though SPAM is considered the king of the mystery meats, it's actually no mystery at
00:58all.
00:59In fact, SPAM only contains six simple ingredients, pork, water, sugar, potato starch, sodium
01:05nitrate, and, as anyone who's ever eaten SPAM can tell you, a whole heck of a lot of salt.
01:10How much?
01:11A single two-ounce serving of SPAM contains 790 milligrams of sodium, equal to a third
01:16of your entire daily recommended intake.
01:19Add in 16 grams of fat per serving, and you have some idea why SPAM isn't exactly considered
01:23a health food.
01:25The fact that Gordon Ramsay has a negative opinion of something isn't exactly breaking
01:29news.
01:30I could cry.
01:31What a joke.
01:32Wow.
01:33But he has a special place in his black heart for SPAM.
01:37On an episode of the British television series Hotel GB, Ramsay recalled a dish from his
01:41childhood, saying that his dislike for the canned meat is what led him to the kitchen.
01:45Sliced, disgusting f----- SPAM.
01:48Did you grow up with that stuff?
01:49I did.
01:50I had SPAM every Friday night.
01:52I decided to cook for a living to stop eating so much f-----.
01:55Tell us how you really feel, Gordon.
01:58Soldiers on the front couldn't always get home cooking, but during World War II, Hormel
02:01shipped tens of millions of cans of SPAM overseas to feed the Allied troops.
02:06Many of them got sick of eating SPAM all the time, but despite that, SPAM's contributions
02:11to the war effort were widely praised.
02:13Former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote in his memoir,
02:17There were many jokes going around in the Army, some of them off-color about American
02:21SPAM.
02:22It tasted good, nonetheless.
02:23Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our Army.
02:26We had lost our most fertile lands.
02:28And after the war, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote to a Hormel executive,
02:32I ate my share of SPAM along with millions of other soldiers.
02:35I'll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it, uttered during the strain of battle,
02:39you understand.
02:40But as former Commander-in-Chief, I believe I can still forgive you your only sin, sending
02:45us so much of it."
02:47High praise for such a loathed product.
02:48One of the most beloved staples of Hawaiian cuisine, of course, is this guy.
02:55SPAM?
02:56Oh, they're big SPAM eaters.
02:57Are you serious?
02:58Following the end of World War II, the U.S. government placed restrictions on Hawaii's
03:02deep-sea fishing industry, which was largely worked by Japanese Americans.
03:06Food historian Rachel Loudon told Eater,
03:08Unlike the mainland, they couldn't intern all the Japanese in Hawaii.
03:12The economy would have collapsed.
03:14Because islanders were no longer allowed to fish, one of the important sources of protein
03:18for the islands vanished.
03:20Without one of their main sources of protein, the population of Hawaii was in grave danger.
03:24But they were saved thanks to a huge influx of SPAM, which also contributed to fending
03:28off starvation in war-ravaged Korea and Japan.
03:32To this day, SPAM remains insanely popular in Hawaii, with residents eating more than
03:36seven million cans each year.
03:38A new post says Hawaii is the happiest state.
03:41I think I know why-y.
03:44Moodle-doodle-doodle-doodle.
03:47Monty Python's notorious 1970s SPAM sketch not only turned the canned meat into a pop
03:52culture phenomenon, it also led to the coining of the term SPAM in reference to unwanted
03:56email.
03:57According to Hormel's old website,
03:59"...use of the term SPAM was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a
04:03group of Vikings sang a chorus of SPAM, SPAM, SPAM in an increasing crescendo, drowning
04:08out other conversation."
04:10Hence the analogy applied because UCE, unsolicited commercial email, was drowning out normal
04:16discourse on the internet.
04:17Hormel has been a good sport about it all, though, even releasing a special edition can
04:21of SPAM for the Broadway debut of Monty Python's SPAM-A-Lot musical.
04:25"...could I have egg, bacon, SPAM, and sausage without the SPAM?"
04:32SPAM is an easy target for jokes, but the numbers prove that plenty of people actually
04:36love it.
04:37Since its introduction in 1937, over eight billion cans of SPAM have been sold around
04:41the world, with 15 varieties offered in 44 countries.
04:45Guam leads the way in SPAM consumption, with the average citizen eating 16 cans per year.
04:50So how does Hormel keep up with that kind of demand?
04:53Technology.
04:54Hormel processes SPAM in 8,000-pound batches thanks to a special oven that can simultaneously
04:59cook 66,000 cans of SPAM.
05:02That kind of volume allows Hormel to produce an astonishing 350 cans of SPAM every single
05:07minute.
05:08"...pork shoulder and ham meat are taken from this picnic boning line and used for the manufacture
05:14of SPAM, the most popular luncheon meat in the country."
05:17But the number that really shows how much people love SPAM is one, which is how many
05:21times someone has created a cocktail using SPAM.
05:25Chicago's Duck Inn designed the SPAM Mai Tai, which uses baked SPAM to infuse rum with that
05:31signature canned meat flavor.
05:33All we can say is, drink up!