PUBLIC HEALTH : Hawaiians Fight for Right to Eat Homespun Spam Snack

Hawaii has its share of McDonald’s and Burger Kings. But for local residents, there’s more to fast food than burgers and fries. There is Spam musubi.

And, as some regulators are finding out, its devotees would rather fight than switch.

A quintessential sample of the “East meets West” flavor of the Hawaiian Islands, Spam musubi is a slab of lightly fried Spam--courtesy of that bastion of Americanism, Geo. A. Hormel & Co.--placed atop a Japanese-style rice ball and neatly tied with a belt of seaweed.

For generations, the hearty combination has satisfied the snack craving of Hawaii’s people. Mom-and-pop stores offered Spam musubi wrapped in cellophane, stacked at room temperature near their cash registers. Kids picked them up after school. Secretaries made lunch of them.

“It’s a meal in one,” explains Dot Fujinaga, one of those secretaries. “It’s a great combination and it’s easy to carry around. It’s part of the lifestyle here.”

Until this summer. Concerned about cases of food poisoning, state inspectors stopped winking at the local custom in June and began enforcing longstanding regulations forbidding the sale of perishable foods at room temperature.

They weren’t counting on the passionate response. Musubi lovers and shop owners, led by the Hawaii Ethnic Foods Assn., rose up in indignation. To refrigerate a rice ball, they pointed out, is to ruin it. No one will buy the resulting cluster of hardened grains. The rules were decried as an assault on the local way of life.

“People have been doing this for generations,” argued Ken Iong, association president. “It’s not a health threat to anybody.”

The state agreed to negotiate. After months of bargaining, the Health Department recently announced revised draft rules allowing local favorites like Spam musubi to be kept at room temperature for as long as four hours. After that, the food must be discarded.

To avoid the four-hour rule, perishables must be refrigerated at less than 45 degrees Fahrenheit, or kept hotter than 140 degrees. The regulations apply to all ready-to-eat items that are apt to spoil, including meat, fish, dairy and egg products. In addition to Spam musubi, that includes the popular bentos (Japanese-style box lunches), and even the trademark roast ducks hanging in Chinatown grocers’ windows.

There have been 83 complaints of food-borne illnesses in the last five years linked to ethnic foods in Hawaii, and many others go unreported, said Ellen Blomquist, a Health Department spokeswoman. She said there has been no upward trend, but the agency is concerned that mass production and distribution to retailers is delaying consumption and increasing risks.

“In the past, these items were primarily prepared by small stores, who only did them in small quantities and sold them in a very short period of time,” Blomquist said.

Disease-causing bacteria, like salmonella and staphylococcus, multiply rapidly at room temperature, especially after a few hours.

“We have zero tolerance for any incident of food-borne illness,” said Bruce S. Anderson, state deputy director for environmental health. “These are serious, sometimes fatal, illnesses. It would be utterly irresponsible for us to wait until there is a serious outbreak or a death to begin enforcing regulations when we know there is a serious potential problem.”

The revised regulations will not take effect until after public hearings, which have yet to be scheduled. Food brokers may also seek a variance if they can prove that their foods can be held safely. In the meantime, Spam musubi and bentos are back on the counters.

The shop owners, however, aren’t happy. The time limit, they say, is impractical for large-scale production, and lab tests are expensive and unnecessary. They argue that vinegar in the rice and salt and preservatives in the meat give it a longer shelf life.

“Sometimes fatal? Bentos? Musubi? Roast duck? It just isn’t happening in Hawaii,” scoffed Iong, whose company, Sushi Chef, is a major wholesaler and retailer. “Let’s make room in these regulations for some common sense.”