Whether you love or despise the canned meat, Spam has become an icon of American production during World War II.
Launched by Hormel Foods in 1937, Spam is made of 6 ingredients: pork should with ham (this counts as one ingredient), salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. Come WWII, the US military purchased over 100 million pounds of Spam to feed to troops abroad.
With the American military's presence in Southeast Asia, Spam also reached local populations there. The meat products became very popular there because they kept well, even when they were left unrefrigerated in the tropical climate. According to spam.com (Hormel's website specifically for this product), "[i]n Southeast Asia, SPAM® products are given as a luxury gift" even today.
Another reason for Spam's popularity in Hawaii was the government's response to Pearl Harbor. The US government could not intern all of Hawaii's Japanese population, so instead they restricted industries like deep-sea fishing that employed many Japanese-Americans. Without fish, Spam became the best source of protein. Now, Hawaiians consume 7 million cans of Spam every year, and hold an annual SPAM® JAM festival dedicated to Hormel's canned meat.
While Spam came to be warmly embraced by the communities of Hawaii and Southeast Asia, American GI's did not do the same: Hormel received an unprecedented amount of hate mail from American troops who had received Spam! Jay Hormel himself, the founder of Hormel Foods, thought this abuse was unwarranted, saying the soldiers "ought to have eaten the bully beef we had in the last war" (Eater.com link).
But Spam really does not need their validation: immortalized by Monty Python's Spamalot, Hawaii's obsession with Spam musubi, and public recognition around the world, Spam is an incredible legacy of World War II.
Sources:
http://www.spam.com/
https://www.eater.com/2014/7/9/6191681/a-brief-history-of-spam-an-american-meat-icon
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wanderingmagpie/3842228853/in/photolist-6RwqM4-ag76WB-4BQV4s-UiQ8cT-H7e8PM-7MXN6u-6PyBpo-6AKEZM-T2twvA-ndWDWc-aD8BXo-aFS3e4-6s5bdd-9nhwTn-b6U4sv-bqnbPQ-5DYYf-JcUZbw-bgUujF-eHNbLF-8BRibb-BfEZU-f1mXtn-5YCvPm-5yRQkp-37if33-bCVHPB-nkSKo9-hkBiUv-xi44w-o1hxqL-hXWc2B-7MYVdx-p7QPSG-4WpUNY-CpgsMt-8s4nUx-7N3V3E-7MYVcB-7CaiFi-DUUsN5-T5eyMi-7N3UC7-a46EZP-7fabCu-Cq6NfP-2Uzrbv-oeh26z-fg6oqU-DLguA
I liked how this post was informative on something I hadn't really considered about WWII but also managed to be taught in a humorous kind of way. I see spam a lot at stores but have never tried it myself and have always heard of it as a sort of gross food. However thinking about it now I guess it really does work well as a food to hand out to soldiers since it doesn't go bad easily and works to give people the nutrient they need. I decided to research what other kinds of food soldiers were given during wars and found that during World War I soldiers in the Western Front were very critical of the quantity and the quality of food they received. The main parts of their diet in trenches consisted was canned corned beef, bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips. They then even switched over to eating a pea-soup with a few lumps of horse meat as their main meal.
ReplyDeleteSource: http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWtrenchfood.htm
I love the information and time dedicated to making this post, but I have to wonder which ones soldiers like more? The spam or meal rations, because to me it would seem like the spam is a lot more appetizing.
ReplyDelete