Fresh Perspectives

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word SPAM?
 
For most of us, it’s either the annoying junk emails that often flood our inbox or the nasty looking precooked meat that comes in the little tin cans.  Well, in Hawaii, Spam, the meat that is, is loved by all.  The Burger King fast food restaurants in Hawaii even started selling a Spam breakfast, consisting of a couple slices of the beloved meat along with rice and eggs.  Or you can just get a quick-fix with a spam croissant or biscuit.  (I promise I’m not making this up.)
 
Now, I will admit that when I was younger I had a horrible fear of spam (like a lot of you probably do now).  Those little navy blue cans containing Lord only knows what are pretty intimidating.  And the name – c’mon, they could’ve thought of a more appetizing name than Spam. (Fun fact for the day:  spam is short for spiced ham. Share that with a friend. I can assure you they’ll be impressed by your spam knowledge.)
 
Anyway, I finally got over my spam fear while hiking.  Spam is great to take on the trail – it’s high in energy and will last a very long time. Plus, anything tastes good after miles of tough hiking on top of a mountain.  But even after trying spam, I can’t honestly say that I’d choose to eat it regularly.  Not until I moved to Hawaii that is!!!

Hawaii has just about any type of spam you can imagine:  spicy spam, teriyaki spam, spam and cheese, hickory smoked spam, you get the idea.  But by far, the most popular way to eat spam (and my new favorite snack) is the musubi.  It consists of a slice of spam on top of a block of white rice held together by a piece of nori (or seaweed).  Sound gross?  You’re sadly mistaken.  It is SO yummy.  Musubi’s are so popular, they’re sold at just about every convenient store/gas station on the island.

So, hopefully after all this spam talk, I’ve changed your opinion of spam just a little bit. The poor meat is just so misunderstood on the mainland…(how sad)! If you ever make to though, you MUST try a musubi! I’m off to enjoy one right now!

Until next time….Aloha!