A Pop Culture Icon--and Lunch Too

In Hawaii, they eat it in sushi. In South Korea, it is a gourmet treat. And in World War II, it filled the stomachs that armies marched on.

Love it, loathe it or laugh at it, Spam has wormed its way into popular 20th century culture, and its first official biography is now on the bookstore menu. From Spam cheesecake to the gourmet adventure of Spam escargots, the true story of the American “miracle meat” in a can is an affectionate tribute to the mushy, pink concoction of pork and ham that has been slithering onto dinner tables around the world for 62 years.

Raised on Spam herself, food writer Carolyn Wyman spent six months researching “Spam: A Biography” (Harcourt Brace) and still considers it a treat. She concluded that a simple luncheon meat that could spawn its own fan club, inspire pop artist Ed Ruscha, earn plaudits from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and give birth to Internet jargon for junk e-mail had earned its place as a cultural icon.

“Spam [has] transcended its gastronomic origins to become a symbol of American popular culture on a level with Elvis and baseball. Its place in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is proof of that,” Wyman said.

“I have come to believe that it is possible to view our entire society solely through the lens of this luncheon meat. . . . It has been the dying soldier’s last meal and the liberated war captive’s first decent one in years,” she added.

After its humble birth in Austin, Minn., in 1937, Spam enjoyed its finest hour during World War II when it became an all-too-regular meal for American GIs, and welcome sustenance for food-rationed British and Soviet citizens.

The name was chosen at a naming party thrown by Jay Hormel, head of the company that makes Spam, in 1936, Wyman says. It comes from the ingredients of Spam--shoulder of pork and ham.

Spam fatigue soon hit the U.S. Army, but in grateful England a young Margaret Thatcher celebrated Christmas 1943 with a tin, and when the little rectangular cans were delivered to liberated Berlin and Poland, they seemed like manna from heaven.

“They were the answer to an SOS, like Robinson Crusoe, a blood transfusion, salvation, I could go on forever,” Irene Urdang de Tour says in the book, recalling the food parcels handed out in Warsaw after her years of slave labor in Berlin.

Gratitude gave way to derision in postwar United States and Britain, where Spam went on popping up, deep-fried as fritters and in sandwiches. Then came a three-minute TV sketch in 1970 from the surreal British comedy team Monty Python, who gave Spam such a roasting that it was impossible ever to take it seriously again.

Despite the laughter that greeted the Python vision of a greasy cafe where Spam is served with everything--including the gargantuan feast of “lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce garnished with truffle pa^te, brandy, fried egg on top and Spam”--90 million cans of the stuff were sold annually in the United States alone in 1997.

One third of all Spam--50 million cans a year--is sold overseas. Appetites are also particularly strong in Hawaii, Guam, South Korea and Okinawa, Japan.

Regular eaters nowadays in the United States are mostly young, impoverished Southern families and older people for whom Spam brings back nostalgic memories of a simpler life. But it has not lost its appeal for Wyman, who is fascinated by the weird and wonderful ways in which Spam is still celebrated.

The official Spam fan club was launched in 1998, there are at least 18 Internet sites dedicated to it and the annual Spam Jam in Austin, its hometown, attracts about 20,000 aficionados to rhyming contests, sculptures and a picnic.

“Most Americans today are too busy to even do their laundry, but here are people sitting around writing Spam poetry. I think it is a wonderful thing that people take that time and interest in having fun,” Wyman said..

Spam maker Hormel is looking at promising new markets in Mexico, Poland and the former Soviet Union to add to the list of more than 50 countries where Spam is sold.

But when you have pigged out on Spam bread, Spam-and-mincemeat candy truffles or Spam fruit cocktail buffet party loaf, there is still a place to escape: the Middle East, where the Muslim and Jewish ban on pork means that Spam will never be dished up under any guise.

Unless, of course, Hormel decides to change the recipe and creates “Speef” or “Spamb.”