Spamwiches
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
As you all know, I use initials rather than names for my dining companions. Recently, I had an epiphany while driving to work. If I were to dine with someone who’s initials are AM, together we would be SPAM!
And that got me to thinking (a seemingly innocuous activity that often has ridiculous results). I had never eaten Spam. AM was coming to ATL. Bingo!
The next thing I knew I was in the unfamiliar canned meat section at Publix, determined to buy Spam. Turns out there is Original and Lite, which is lower in fat, sodium and calories. Even so, one 2 ounce serving has 8 grams of fat and 580 miligrams of sodium! But only 110 calories so I bought it.
Excited about my Spam experiment, I decided it might make a good breakfast meat, fried up with some scrambled eggs. AM watched, somewhat horrified, as I opened the can and the meat product plopped out. Perhaps an egg, Spam, and cheese sandwich would be good? AM suggested open-faced sandwiches.
I sliced off two servings and browned them in a skillet, then scrambled eggs, made toast and melted cheese over the whole mess. The Spamwich was born! Very salty, but not terrible.
Then I read the ingredients. Pork with ham (with ham?), and before I could even say it, he did….mechanically separated chicken. WTF? We had to know more.
Wikipedia defined it as a paste-like meat product produced by forcing bones with attached edible meat through a sieve to separate the meat tissue from the bones. Yum. It is used in everything from hot dogs to Slim Jims. Then we watched the video on YouTube.
Other ingredients in Spam are salt, sugar, sodium phosphates, potassium chloride, sodium ascorbate, and sodium nitrite. Jesus Christ! Extruded meat and sodium.
I thought I might use the leftover Spam for a lunch or dinner experiment but, as it turns out, I’m rather disgusted by the idea. Sorry I made you eat that AM!
