Sales of Spam -- that much maligned meat -- are rising as consumers are turning more to lunch meats and other lower-cost foods to extend their already stretched food budgets. What was once cheeky, silly and the subject of a musical (as Monty Python mocked the meat in a can), is now back on the table as people turn to the once-snubbed meat as costs rise, analysts say.
You just have to wonder just how bad things really are when you get the news that sales of Spam are up. I mean, come on, y'all...have you bothered to read the label? And shouldn't meat that comes in a can be inherently suspect to begin with?
And here's another question that I've wondered about for years: why is Spam so freakin' popular in Hawaii?? I mean, Jeebus...Burger King sells it on the islands. Spam Musubi is a local delicacy...which really only serves to make me wonder just how low the culinary bar can really be set without traveling from the realm of the sublime to the domicile of the ridiculous.
A favorite Hawaiian way to eat Spam is in the form of a musubi (pronounced moo-soo-bee, with no accent). It is a fried slice of spam on rice pressed together to form a small block, then wrapped with a strip of seaweed. A special kitchen gadget, known as the Spam Musubi Maker, is responsible for the proliferation of this treat. It is a special plexiglas mold with the outline of a single Spam slice. The Spam musubi is eaten as a sandwich, and it is perhaps the Island's favorite "to go" or snack food. Spam musubi is literally everywhere in Hawaii, including local convenience stores, grocery stores, school cafeterias, and even at the zoo. Eating a Spam musubi seems to serve as a rite of passage for newcomers anxious to attain "local" status.
I suppose that when you get right down to it, perhaps sometimes reading labels really can be highly overrated....
