Hormel introduced SPAM in 1937, making the product 87 years old. No matter how much disdain foodies may have for it, SPAM isn’t going anywhere, much like its namesake that ends up in your inbox. No, the name does not stand for “Scientifically Processed Animal Matter,” and there is nothing particularly scientific about its creation although the neat way all the ingredients form together in the can through gelatinization is fairly sciency. Theories about the origin of the product name are not the only myths about SPAM. It is subject to more myths than perhaps any other canned food products. Here are some of fact about SPAM together with some of the major myths surrounding the product.
Myth 1: How SPAM Was Named is a SECRET
The name of this mixture of pork, water, sugar, salt, starch, and sodium nitrate came from a contest the Hormel Company held to come up with the best name. The winning entry, Spam, comes from ‘spiced ham.’ A $100 prize went to the brother of a Hormel company executive, Ken Daigneau, for that genius name.
Hormel was responsible for producing the nation’s first canned ham product called ‘Hormel Flavor-Sealed Ham’ in 1926, so producing a canned ‘ham’ product was not new for the company. Spam was first marketed as ‘Spiced Ham’ before it found its permanent name. It was created as a way to get rid of excess pork shoulder, which was not a great seller. This is the most accepted origin story for the name.
It is often claimed that SPAM stands for “Shoulder of Pork and Ham” but this is unlikely. It certainly never stood for “Scientifically Processed Animal Matter.” Another humorous idea is “Something Posting as Meat.”
The SPAM website and the HormelFoods website clearly states that while the “real meaning” of the name is known only to a select few, but then they go ahead and say that the name came from a contest described above and that most speculate that it is a portmanteau for “Spiced Ham” and it probably is. The company likes the idea that people are speculating about the meaning of the name but I suspect that it being a “secret” is just something they say.
Myth 2: SPAM Was Invented As Army Rations
SPAM became popular after its use to feed American soldiers during World War II. During the war, the U.S. military bought 90% of the SPAM produced by Hormel. However, SPAM was in now way originally intended to be Army rations and it was not invented for this purpose. SPAM did help win World War II, however. By the time the war was over the U.S. Army had bought over 150 million pounds of it.
It not only fed American soldiers, but our allies overseas, and since then, it has been the subject of a great deal of derision but also plenty of nostalgic affection. In truth, SPAM was instrumental in winning the war and defeating Germany, and yet, history books usually fail to mention it.
Yet, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev even credited SPAM with saving his soldiers from starvation during the war. Over 100 million pounds of SPAM and SPAM products were sold per year during the war.
Soldiers made great use of the unique properties of SPAM. Its copious fat was used to lubricate guns and skin and it was even made into candles. The cans were very useful as well. They were made into pots or even into stills to produce various spirits.
The soldiers also had many derisive opinions on it. They called it ‘Ham that didn’t pass its physical,” and “Meatloaf without basic training.” SPAM was also said to be “the real reason war was hell.”
While American soldiers were eating more SPAM than American civilians, the same wasn’t true in Britain, where SPAM was one of the only meat products available. SPAM was even served in French restaurants. It is claimed that the French thought the name of SPAM was an acronym for ‘specially prepared American meat.
SPAM is associated with the great depression, during which it was conceived, and the further deprivation of World War II. Most Americans wanted to forget about SPAM after the war and its sales decreased for a period.
Myth 3: People Don’t Eat SPAM Anymore
SPAM’s use by the military spread it all over the world. It is especially loved in the Pacific Islands including Hawaii, where it is not the the state’s official national food, as some people think, but it’s darned close. Hawaiians consume about 7 million cans of spam per year.
Spam Musubi, shown below, is a popular snack in Hawaii consisting of a slice of grilled spam on a layer of rice wrapped in dried seaweed. It could be thought of as SPAM Omosubi, after a similar Japanese snack made with rice (not Sushi rice).
And despite all the breathless condemnation of processed foods, high sodium—not to mention fat—and mystery meats, Spam has not only stood the test of time but its sales continue to grow. In 2021, Hormel reported record-high sales, causing the company to increase its production capabilities.
According to Hormel, over 9 billion cans of Spam have been purchased since its creation, and around 12.8 cans of Spam products are eaten every second. Many spinoff products have been introduced through the years, including a SPAM Lite with 50% less sodium and a SPAM made with turkey.
Myth 4: The term SPAM for Junk Mail Has Nothing to Do With Canned SPAM
During the second World War, SPAM was one of the only meat products available in Britain. It a 1970 skit, Monty Python’s Flying Circus made great use of this fact and may have been responsible for how we use the word SPAM to refer to unsolicited messages like email, text messages, etc., usually of a commericial nature, sent to a large number of recipients.
In the Monty Python skit, a couple enter a restaurant and try to order a meal only to find that every item on the menu contains SPAM:
“Spam, egg, sausage, and spam”…”spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam.”
The word SPAM was used 94 times in the skit even though it only lasted around two minutes. Toward the end of the skit, a chorus of Vikings sing a song about ‘spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam’ so loudly that the customers can’t be heard trying to order their meals.
Myth 5: Nobody Knows What’s In SPAM, It’s Mystery Meat
The ingredients in SPAM are not a secret at all. It starts with pork shoulder to which is added salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrate.
Have SPAM Ingredients Changed?
At its inception, the basic ingredients in SPAM were pork shoulder, water, salt, sugar, and sodium nitrate. That formula remained unchanged until 2009. Before then, when you opened a can of SPAM there was what Hormel called a ‘gelatin layer.’ This could also be called meat jelly” or “aspic.”
This gelatin layer occurs as the meat is cooked in the can. The heat breaks down the collagen to form gelatin. Gelatin, including the gelatin used in Jell-O and other such products, is a cooked form of collagen. As the mixture cools the gelatin solidifies around the edges of the meat.
There is nothing unusual about this and you’ll find similar gelatins around other tinned meat products, such as canned corned beef. These kind of ‘meat jellies’ are created intentionally to make aspics. Hormel decided that this gelatin layer was not very esthetic, however, so they added potato starch to the mix.
The potato starch soaks up the gelatin as it forms so that there is no slimy layer on the outside of the SPAM when you remove it from the can. Other than this, according to Hormel, the formula for classic SPAM has not changed.
Myth 6: SPAM Was Invented Solely To Get Rid of Unwanted Pork Shoulder
I believe this to be the biggest SPAM myth of all. It has to do with why the product was invented. It is often claimed that it was solely invented to get rid of unwanted pork shoulder that the public refused to touch.
It is not exactly true that pork shoulder was “unwanted.” It’s a tasty cut. It’s more that the public was unfamiliar with the cut and the shape of it. To cut it all off the bone and process it was, in the past, not worth the trouble because of the long and tedious labor involved. These were lean times, so the idea that Americans would absolutely refuse to eat pork shoulder is not precisely true.
In fact, Hormel had previously come out with some other iconic canned products designed to appeal to customers who didn’t have a lot of excess cash, for example, Dinty Moore Beef Stew and Hormel Chilli. The company was increasing production at that time, a typical sort of gamble for them under the new leadership of Jay Hormel. Hormel Flavor-Sealed Canned Ham was also on the market.
Workers at Hormel weren’t too happy that their wages didn’t increase with the profits so they formed a union. Around the same time as they were organizing, Jay Hormel decided to institute a “pension” plan to entice people to stay with the company. He would put one dollar a week toward retirement and life insurance for just 20 cents removed from their paychecks. He then began strongarming workers into signing up for this.
One such incident caused union leaders to institute a work stoppage for ten minutes and the whole business got the workers quite fired up for organizing. Things got pretty heated (even though Jay Hormel wanted to accept union labor, other meat packers did not so he was in a bind) and to make a long story short, the result was a profit-sharing plan, merit pay, and an Annual Wage Plan. Also, any increase in output would result in higher pay.
Hormel ended up in a situation in which they were paying quite high wages but making products that were selling slowly. If he tried to lay off workers, he got a strike for his trouble. So, this was how SPAM came about. If Hormel was going to pay workers for long hours on the line in a slow sales time, he needed something else for them to do, so, how about cutting the meat off all that wasted pork shoulder? And thus, SPAM was invented to make use of all this pork shoulder meat painstakingly removed from the bone. That’s the real story of SPAM why SPAM was invented. It was solely a business decision based on union problems. It is doubtful that Hormel would have ever decided to process this surplus pork shoulder if workers had not organized.
Myth 7: George Hormel invented SPAM
George Hormel had already turned over control of the company to his son Jay Hormel years before SPAM was invented. He did not personally create the recipe for SPAM nor is it known that he had anything to do with the product being introduced at all.
