Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation. The labeled ingredients in the variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar, and sodium nitrite. It has gained a peculiar infamy, along with something of a place in pop culture, and has even entered into folklore and urban legend.

Other varieties of Spam include Low-Salt Spam, Spam Lite (containing pork and chicken), and Spam Oven Roasted Turkey - the latter is a halaal food, meaning that it is allowed under Islamic law, and is especially popular in Muslim markets.

Spam is produced in (among other places) Austin, Minnesota, USA (also known as Spam Town USA). In 2002, the six billionth can of Spam was sold.

Name origin

Introduced on July 5, 1937, the name "Spam" was chosen in the 1930s when the product, whose original name was far less memorable (Hormel Spiced Ham), began to lose market share. The name was chosen from multiple entries in a naming contest. A Hormel official once stated that the original meaning of the name spam was "Shoulder of Pork and hAM". According to writer Marguerite Patten in Spam – The Cookbook, the name was suggested by Kenneth Daigneau, an actor and the brother of a Hormel vice president. The current official explanation is that the name is a syllabic abbreviation of "SPiced hAM", and that the originator was given a $100 prize for coming up with the name.

Many jocular backronyms have been devised, such as "Something Posing As Meat"

According to Hormel's trademark guidelines, Spam should be spelled with all capital letters and treated as an adjective, as in the phrase SPAM luncheon meat. As with many other trademarks, such as Xerox or Kleenex, people often refer to similar meat products as "spam". Regardless, in practice, "Spam" is generally spelled and used as a proper noun.

International usage

As of 2003, Spam is sold in 41 countries worldwide. The largest consumers of Spam after the United States are the United Kingdom and South Korea.

In the United States, the residents of the state of Hawaii and the territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) consume the most Spam per capita. On average, each person on Guam consumes 16 tins of spam each year and the numbers at least equal this in the CNMI. Guam, Hawaii, and Saipan, the CNMI's principal island, have the only McDonald's restaurants that feature Spam on the menu. One popular Spam dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, in which cooked Spam is combined with rice and nori seaweed and classified as onigiri.

Spam was introduced into these areas, in addition to other islands in the Pacific such as Okinawa and the Philippine Islands, because of U.S. military occupation. Surpluses of Spam made their way into native diets. Consequently, Spam is unique part of the history and effects of U.S. empire-building in the Pacific.

World War II saw the largest use of Spam, since fresh meat was difficult to get to the soldiers on the front. GIs started eating Spam for breakfast, lunch and supper. Some soldiers referred to Spam as 'ham that didn't pass its physical' and 'meatloaf without basic training.

In these locales, varieties of spam unavailable in other markets are sold. These include honey spam, spam with bacon, and hot and spicy spam.

In the CNMI, lawyers from Hormel have threatened legal action against the local press for running articles decrying the ill-effects of high Spam consumption on the health of the local population.

In the United Kingdom Spam is a popular addition to the menu of fish and chip shops, where slices are battered and deep-fried and are known as 'Spam fritters'. It gained popularity in the 1940s during World War II, during the Lend-Lease Act. One nickname for England was 'Spamland.

In Okinawa, Spam has become very popular for much the same reason as in Hawaii. Spam is even used in traditional Okinawan dish Chanpurū, and there is also a Spam burger sold by local fast food chain Jef.

In China, Spam is also a rather popular food item, being served as a sort of Western cuisine. It is used in sandwiches.

In Greece, Spam is often called "Godzilla" or "Godzilla meat" by army conscripts, the characterism humorously implying an "unknown origin" with regards to the ingredients.

In South Korea, Spam is popular in households as accompaniments to rice. A television ad claimed that it is the most tasty when consumed with white rice and Gim (nori or black seaweed used for some type of handrolls). It is also a popular ingredient for Boodaechigae, a spicy broth with different types of preserved meat.

Spam celebrations
Spam-eating contest at Spamarama in Austin, Texas

Spam is celebrated in a small local festival in Austin, Minnesota, where Hormel corporate headquarters are located. The event, known as Spam Jam, is a carnival-type celebration which coincides with local Fourth of July festivities, featuring parades and fireworks which often relate to the popular luncheon meat. Austin is also home to the Spam Museum, and the plant that produces the Spam for most of North America and Europe.

The Spam Jam is not to be confused with Spamarama, which is a yearly festival held on April Fool's Day in Austin, Texas. The theme of Spamarama is gentle parody of Spam, rather than straightforward celebration: the event at the heart of the festival is a Spam cook-off that originated as a challenge to produce an appetizing recipe for the meat. The festival includes light sporting activities and numerous Christian musical acts, in addition to the cook-off.

don't cry like a bitch.