Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Vienna Sausages don't get that kind of love

Putting the SPAM in Spamalot

Spamalot at Cygnet Theatre cast members Anthony Methvin, Sean Murray, Jonathan Sangster, Trevor Cruse, James Saba, and Donny Gersonde.
Spamalot at Cygnet Theatre cast members Anthony Methvin, Sean Murray, Jonathan Sangster, Trevor Cruse, James Saba, and Donny Gersonde.

As the story goes, pork shoulder was a tough sell in 1920s America, so a scion of the Hormel Foods empire devised a way to blend the cheap meat with ham and preservatives, and in 1937 the first cans of SPAM were sold.

It’s supposed to be a portmanteau, mashing together the words spiced and ham, though aside from salt and sugar, the closest thing to spice in spam is the sodium nitrate that gives it a shelf life of somewhere between two and five years, depending who you ask.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The stuff has become something of a processed food legend, almost despite itself. A frequent subject of kitschy magazine features, SPAM history and myths have proliferated to the point there is now a museum and annual festival dedicated to it. You don’t see Vienna Sausages getting that kind of love.

Back in the 1940s, a group of 60 women known as the Hormel Girls used to tour the country with an orchestra to evangelize SPAM. The United States reportedly sent millions of cans to feed the Russian army during World War Two, where it may or may not have been interpreted as a virtue of capitalism. Adweek has alleged that, in current-day Southeast Asia, gift packs of the stuff are deemed “popular wedding gifts.”

All this attention for a processed meat allegedly cooked within its own can on the assembly line.

Of course, another definition of spam has almost eclipsed the original: unwanted email. Hormel blames the British sketch comedy show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for SPAM eventually being adopted as a term for unwanted email. In the 1970 sketch, characters repeat the word "spam" so often that the word effectively renders the rest of language meaningless. Similarly, in its mode of communication, spam email represents noise rather than signal, and prevents any legitimate message from getting through.

Wired magazine reported that Hormel recently attempted to trademark the word "spam," hoping to keep the gelatinous pork product from being associated with bogus emails. But in the end, the corporation settled for insisting that any public references to the actual canned product should be written in all caps and always followed by the words, “Luncheon Meat.”

So it’s a tad ironic that the story of SPAM Luncheon Meat only seems to prove the adage there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Whether attributable to Hormel Girls, wedding registries, the cult status of Monty Python comedy, or excessive emails, the proliferation of spam has only increased since the Russians got ahold of it.

Four or five years ago, Hormel made the claim 8 billion cans of SPAM Luncheon Meat had been sold in 44 countries. Hormel hasn’t updated that number, but the official SPAM web site claims the world consumes 12.8 cans every second, so the actual count could now be approaching 10 billion.

Nearly a century after its inception, SPAM has become a bona fide American cultural export. And the Monty Python musical Spamalot plays at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town until August 12.

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader readers sound off about Encinitas cliffs

Not much sympathy for victims
Spamalot at Cygnet Theatre cast members Anthony Methvin, Sean Murray, Jonathan Sangster, Trevor Cruse, James Saba, and Donny Gersonde.
Spamalot at Cygnet Theatre cast members Anthony Methvin, Sean Murray, Jonathan Sangster, Trevor Cruse, James Saba, and Donny Gersonde.

As the story goes, pork shoulder was a tough sell in 1920s America, so a scion of the Hormel Foods empire devised a way to blend the cheap meat with ham and preservatives, and in 1937 the first cans of SPAM were sold.

It’s supposed to be a portmanteau, mashing together the words spiced and ham, though aside from salt and sugar, the closest thing to spice in spam is the sodium nitrate that gives it a shelf life of somewhere between two and five years, depending who you ask.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The stuff has become something of a processed food legend, almost despite itself. A frequent subject of kitschy magazine features, SPAM history and myths have proliferated to the point there is now a museum and annual festival dedicated to it. You don’t see Vienna Sausages getting that kind of love.

Back in the 1940s, a group of 60 women known as the Hormel Girls used to tour the country with an orchestra to evangelize SPAM. The United States reportedly sent millions of cans to feed the Russian army during World War Two, where it may or may not have been interpreted as a virtue of capitalism. Adweek has alleged that, in current-day Southeast Asia, gift packs of the stuff are deemed “popular wedding gifts.”

All this attention for a processed meat allegedly cooked within its own can on the assembly line.

Of course, another definition of spam has almost eclipsed the original: unwanted email. Hormel blames the British sketch comedy show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for SPAM eventually being adopted as a term for unwanted email. In the 1970 sketch, characters repeat the word "spam" so often that the word effectively renders the rest of language meaningless. Similarly, in its mode of communication, spam email represents noise rather than signal, and prevents any legitimate message from getting through.

Wired magazine reported that Hormel recently attempted to trademark the word "spam," hoping to keep the gelatinous pork product from being associated with bogus emails. But in the end, the corporation settled for insisting that any public references to the actual canned product should be written in all caps and always followed by the words, “Luncheon Meat.”

So it’s a tad ironic that the story of SPAM Luncheon Meat only seems to prove the adage there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Whether attributable to Hormel Girls, wedding registries, the cult status of Monty Python comedy, or excessive emails, the proliferation of spam has only increased since the Russians got ahold of it.

Four or five years ago, Hormel made the claim 8 billion cans of SPAM Luncheon Meat had been sold in 44 countries. Hormel hasn’t updated that number, but the official SPAM web site claims the world consumes 12.8 cans every second, so the actual count could now be approaching 10 billion.

Nearly a century after its inception, SPAM has become a bona fide American cultural export. And the Monty Python musical Spamalot plays at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town until August 12.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

The greatest symphonist of them all

Havergal Brian wrote over 30 of them
Next Article

SD Symphony singer tells what it’s like behind the scenes

Conductor Payare even looks like Mahler
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader