Something to Chew On, and Keep Smiling

My insides are pretty angry with me right now.

For the sake of “getting the story,” I downed eight Spam dishes at Wednesday’s Ventura County Fair. Most were quite good. A few were not.

At noon each day, volunteer fair officials gather to judge a cooking contest. The menu changes daily in a search for everything from the county’s best seafood dish to the best lemon pie.

Wednesday’s contest, featuring Spam Oven-Roasted Turkey, proved to be the most popular yet at this fair.

For those not familiar with the canned food, Spam is a greasy pink cube of processed spiced ham, hence its name. This time, the Hormel Foods people altered the annual contest to promote a new product.

Although my opinions would not count, I joined four judges to experience what they go through. I wanted to walk a mile with their forks.

Organizers played an audiotape of Monty Python’s Spam skit while entrants fussed over last-minute placement of toothpicks and garnishes. The judges rated the dishes on taste, originality and appearance.

“You want it to look pretty so your palate wants to eat it,” said Madalon Lambert of Ventura, now in her third year as a judge.

We loaded up our plates with a sample of each entry, which had names like Spam-azing Turkey Puffs and Turkey Vegetable Spam-chiladas. The entries included a Spam turkey stuffing, an Asian sweet-and-sour Spam dish, a Spam casserole and Spam jambalaya.

No matter their personal preferences, the judges are required to taste all entries. Judge Jim Kniss of Ventura said the secret was not to fill up on any one entry.

“What you try to do is just take a small bite,” Kniss said. “I kind of tore it apart to see what it looks like on the inside.”

To keep our tongues fresh and the taste of each dish separate, we used water and saltines between samplings.

Surprisingly, most of the dishes were edible and even tasty. My personal favorite was a mildly spicy, cheesy Spam casserole, filled with corn and little pasta shells.

I gave most of the dishes high marks, listing only one entry as “vile” and another as “dry as hell.” The judges were more forgiving in their criticism.

“Everybody has their own taste,” Lambert said.

Even when judges sample something that disagrees with them, they smile and keep chewing, she said.

Last year, judges had to contend with more than a dozen Spam entries.

In the end, judges chose Fillmore resident Rose Zellmer’s Roasted Spam Turkey Garlic Pizza. Zellmer won $150 and moves on to the national Spam competition, where the winner gets a free trip to Hormel’s headquarters in Minneapolis and a $2,500 shopping spree at the Mall of America.

After the contest area cleared, the judges went seeking something Spam-less to eat. My first stop was to find a contest for the best antacid cocktail.