Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How SPAM Works

Episode Date: October 28, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, SPAM is a canned meat product made from pork shoulder and ham. First introduced in 1937, this iconic food has spread to stores across the world. But what exactly is it, how did it get here -- and why is its shelf life "indefinite?" Tune in to find out. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host on the podcast. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping-off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's sysk selects. I've chosen spam There's so much to understand about spam including one of my favorite facts of our entire show That spam never goes bad. So enjoy spam now Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works comm Hey and welcome to the podcast on Josh Clark, I am Josh Clark And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that's stuff you should know. Let's all go home

Some people are probably already know well go to bed Okay Tell me that in the email the other day. Go back to sleep. I don't get that. You're just being goofy. Yeah, okay Just lightening the mood. I got you go back to sleep. Yeah. Hey, buddy Hey, Josh, I have a story for you. All right. Let's hear it. So last November not too many months ago. Stop looking Just listen. All right There was a carnival cruise liner that had a little fire the carnival splendor was on a seven-day trip to the Mexican Riviera and

About 44 miles off the coast of Mexico it went adrift because of fire in the engine room just knocked everything out So they lost power which means it was basically just like Being on an abandoned boat, but filled with people a ghost ship a ghost ship and filled with not just people filled with 250 magicians who were on a convention That sounds like my idea of hell on earth, okay in addition to the magicians which Apologies to any magicians listening. We got ice sculptures melting. You've got magicians. They can't find their rabbits Um, you've got toilets. They don't flush. You've got Cabins that are stuffy. Yeah, you have

Warm food or warm drink. Yes. So carnival in their credit did Give away free beer and wine and all that but it was warm So for three days all these people were beer just sitting adrift. Yeah, right in a very just They weren't very happy the US Navy flew Sorties out to this This ship and dropped off supplies They dropped off can lump crab meat. They dropped off pop tarts. Yeah, they dropped off a little something called spam canned meat, uh-huh and

When the ship was finally I think towed back to Port sadly the people dubbed this crazy vacation What do you think? Do you think they thought they they dubbed it the pop tart Cation? No Do you think they dubbed it the lump crab meat Cation? No, of course. No, they dubbed it spam Cation 2010 yeah, that's like Chad's story our buddy Chad was on a cruise remember when he was younger that the power went down He never told me this one. Oh, yeah He said it was like Sodom and Gomorrah for a couple of days. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he said the people were Having a lot of fun and engaging in sodomy, but just and Gomorrah me

Having a good time is what he how he characterized it. That's crazy I wonder if he just didn't realize that it would have been like that either way with the power on or off He was just exposed to the power off part I don't know he kind of made it seem like that with the power down people people just it was a little nutty It was sort of like the end times are here. We're on a cruise ship adrift and let's just have fun with each other crazy Yeah, yeah, I've never been on a cruise you know. Yeah, I'm not a cruise guy My dad's like he's turned into a cruise guy He and he and my stepmom are into cruises, but they yeah, my dad's way into him every time they go

They come back with like a stomach bug or the flu or just something apparently they just it's like the Epidemic just goes through like crazy like wildfire my friend Andrew in New York or from LA But from the Bronx Andrew his he showed me the tape of his Graham I think it was his grandmother Maybe it was his aunt this you know like the old Jewish lady in New York talking about a cruise and she was explaining About the cruise and how much it costs and how much you get and she was like it almost cause he said she said it costs More to stay at home like she thought it was cheaper to go on a cruise than to just live her life at home Huh? Well, she does live in New York. It was very funny though. Yeah, I didn't tell her right, but

Andrew if you're listening, I still remember that and if you're listening Chuck, sorry for that one I am so that was spamcation 2010 and of course they named it spamcation spam The food by the way if you were hoping to hear about spam email. Yeah, we'll mention that We'll mention that briefly, but this is about the iconic Potted meat right which by the way Chuck next July 5th will be its 75th birthday July 5th 2012 it was introduced to the public May 11th 2012 it will have been 75 years since it was trademarked and technically born. Yeah, and then I know in 25 years there will be a

Spam tenial is what they'll probably call it. Yes, which will be spam-tastic So Chuck um Let's talk about spam. It's shrouded in mystery. No one has a clue what's in it or in what degree or what it's made of So Chuck what is spam? Josh spam is a pinkish brick of meat that is canned and it is we actually do know what's in it. It is pretty easy It's 100% pork shoulder and ham. Yeah, and ham's from the butt, right? It's from the rear hind legs and rear end of the pig is what ham is

It's also got a lot of salt because you need that to help flavor and preserve the meat and I got a little bit of sugar for flavor and water and Then a tiny amount is what they say on the Hormel site They use the word tiny a tiny amount of sodium nitrite which keeps the botulism away It's keeps the botulism away And it also keeps the pinkish hue because if not spam would turn gray which is not very appetizing It's they're doing their best to keep it pink

So I don't know that the pink or the gray with spam specifically would make a difference Yeah, but the grabster for some reason who wrote this article how spam all the good ones Um, he he didn't he left out potato starch for some reason. Oh, was that in there? Yeah potato starch is in there too I did not see that. Yeah spam has a Hormel on the website says the shelf life is indefinite No, yes. Wow. They say it's indefinite They recommend you eat it is stamped within three years of the stamped because the flavor quote gradually declines Wow, it declines to the bottom of the can. Yeah, but it's still edible shake it up. I'm sure it goes right back Yeah, yeah

That's really something. So should we do history first or should we? Go into the production. Um, we can make sense to do history first. Well, let's do history then, okay You know before it was called spam. There was a product on the market Called Hormel spiced ham Did you know that I did not know that and it wasn't selling very well Well, because Hormel was in the fresh meat Biz right and apparently it's just it was hard to make your name in the fresh meat biz because it was just kind of all The same looking right like look at this turkey breast, right?

It looks like the turkey breast next to us. I imagine they still have the same problem today Yeah, but they decided to get into the can meet business. Well, that was George Hormel's problem J. Hormel was the one who said well, it's just let's yeah get into can meet and he was the son of George the founder and this was in the late 1800s in Austin, Minnesota Yes, which is still the home of Hormel. Yeah, right and where it's one of two places. It's produced. No, there's a few others. Oh, they added some Yeah, there's a career South Korea Denmark and

Can't remember where the third one is okay in North America. You're right free, Montenegro. It's the other place right so J. Hormel is I guess the he comes into his father's business and just revamped him and probably kept it going today Can meet see exactly. Yeah Um, one of the reasons why he got into can meet was because they were just not able to make a name for themselves in the fresh meat but also because he came into the the business during the depression and There was a lot of

Thriftiness. Yeah, so people wanted something that was cheap and delicious that they could feed their family But meaty right and J. Hormel gave them spiced ham But it wasn't called spam at first. Like I said, it was called spiced ham, right? Yeah Well, he had he had problems at first Packaging it because it took a lot of trial and error because canning meat. It was a pretty new Fangled thing at the time and apparently sell walls the heat would cause so yeah, we need to point out that spam is cooked Yeah, it comes like you can eat it right out of the can. It's cooked. I have already have you. Oh, yeah Man not me. I mean, I haven't eaten spam literally since college, but we used to take on camping trips and fried up

Well, yeah, that's not right out of the can. No, but I could also eat it out of the can I can eat it fried circumstance. I have never eaten it out of the can. Yeah, it's you know, it's the taste is the same but man fried Like I was remembering that taste today. I mean, it's been 20 years though or probably not 15 It's been a lot less than that for me. Oh really? Oh, yeah, you miss families from Okinawa and Okinawans are crazy for spam Really? Oh, yeah, like Hawaiians. Yeah, we'll get to that too so The cell walls would break down and release the water from the meat

So what would you would have was as dry meat floating in water, which is pretty gross. It's separate Yeah, because these cells would lice. That's right. This is not good so over time they figured out the canning process which meant a lot of salt and the Precise temperature that you need to cook it at to preserve it to where it is Moist and it also has to be mixed and canned in a vacuum, which is really important. That's the key That's the key if you yeah, if you mix it and can it in a vacuum you should be okay And speaking of key remember when you needed a key to open it? No, I wasn't alive then. Here you are. It wasn't that long ago. I wasn't paying attention to spam

Yeah, there was a key it came attached to the can and you would take off the key and insert it into a little thing and roll it back Like I guess like old sardine cans used to do the same thing. Okay. Yeah No, I've seen that on like cartoons from the 60s, but I didn't know spam had that spam keys, huh? Before they went I guess with the pull tab was that like a giveaway though like a spam key like you'd send off for it Or were they no it came at the store it came attached to the bottom of the can. Oh, gotcha Yeah, man, those are the good old days. It was self-contained and fairly explanatory. All right So Jay Hormel figures out how to can meet. Yes, but he's not He's he was a born marketer the guy sold he came up with Hormel's chili con carne

Oh, really? He hired a 20-piece Mexican band to go around the country the country like touting its goodness And that was Los Lobos, right? Gypsy Kings I think okay, and so like he would come up with great publicity since he was good at marketing But he was he was hamstrung. Hmm by I'm strong by the name Hormel spiced meat It wasn't selling well. He had that he had it he had it figured out And he later on kind of messed a little bit with the recipe to come up with spam as we know it today But there's something similar called Hormel spiced ham. So he was having trouble Coming up with a name and he had a New Year's Eve party

Right. Yeah. Well, he had a contest before the party. Yeah, and it yielded nothing It yielded names like brunch and baby grand right and he was like We can do better than this baby grand, right? And we should probably give a shout out to needle Rama who had a pretty good little blog post about it That was that where you saw it. Um So Hormel's like we need to do better than that I'm going to have a New Year's Eve party and I'm going to tell my guests that I will they can get a free drink For every name they write down on a slip of paper

Uh-huh, and there's a quote from him saying that along about the fourth or fifth drink people started using their imaginations, right? I imagine so uh, and finally a an actor Named what was his name Chuck? His name was, uh, kenneth D-a-i-g-n-e-a-u Dagnu then the now the kneel didn't you didn't you we'll go with that. Okay. Uh, he was a Broadway actor Uh, I believe um, he came up with the name spam and won a hundred bucks Yeah, you had like a five slow gin fizzes And it came up with spam right and won a hundred hundred cash, right?

And that was it. I guess he had to sign away the rights. Oh, I'm sure right there on the spot. Yeah, he's like I'll sign it Yeah spam. Yeah, I wonder how he came up with it Besides the fact that he was drunk It's intruded in mystery It's lost to mysteries a lot of if you go on to the spam official site and they're like what what does spam mean? and there's a lot of There's a lot of conjecture that it means things like um Something posing as meat. Yeah, like it's an acronym. Not true. Um, or that it's uh, it stands for um stuff

pork and meat Okay, it's another acronym apparently there's dirty ones too Yeah, but what we need to point out though again that spam is not some weird mystery meat with all sorts of like Disgusting parts. It's unless you think pork shoulder and ham is disgusting Right. I mean, we know what's in it That's true. Um, so Apparently it's lost to time. They think it's just basically taking spiced and ham and put together But again, if you go on the official spam website, they're like spam meat spam now, right? That's what we're going with. Sure

Hey everybody when you're staying at an air bnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an air bnb? And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about lauren in Nova Scotia Who realized she could air bnb her cozy backyard tree house and the extra income helps cover her bills and pays for her travel So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an air bnb too find out what your place could be earning at air bnb dot ca slash host On the podcast pay dude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey dude as our jumping off point

But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair Do you remember aol instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your game boy blowing on it and popping it back in

As we take you back to the 90s Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Um, so that's where the name came from it was 1937 That uh, hornel trademarked it introduced it to the public and it started to take off pretty well But it was actually aided by um In a an obscure act by the u.s. Congress That that was passed in 1941 called the lend lease act Right did that have something to do with the exportation? It did so in 1941

America was neutral still in the in what was becoming world war two right and they the congress passed the lend lease act Saying that the president had the authority to send And uh weapons supplies and food to countries that were fighting the axis power which effectively Reversed the neutral neutral stance we had right yeah, and spam's a good thing to send because it's uh, you can have it forever It's in a can that can get dented up and uh Soldiers apparently could eat a lot of it and not just soldiers people in other countries Yeah, it was in restaurants. They shipped a hundred million pounds of this stuff Yeah, so hornel was like hey, we've got a bunch of stuff for you. Give us a contract and they did and it became

Ubiquitous in world war two Especially in the pacific right so two things are going on with the gis Well two things are going on with world war two one the gis are eating this stuff or what they thought was spam morning noon and night and Hated it because they got so sick of it And then secondly it was also being shipped to countries that were part of the pacific and european theaters And then after world war two stopped these people had developed a taste for spam Well, the other even the soldiers that hated it came back and they were kind of like oh boy now

I kind of miss spam they could really go for some spam. Yeah exactly so world war two was like this Incredibly strange perfect Marketing platform for spam. Yeah, and then right after world war two apparently j. Hormel recognized what was going on and he He led out another advertising blitz back here in the states and that was a household name from that point on It was a perfect sporm if you will Sorry Now does that explain why it's popular in hawaii and japan because of pacific thing. Yeah, okay And especially in okinawa. Um, there've been marines there forever and um,

Apparently anywhere the american military goes and has like a very big Open presence in a local population Spams a big thing, but for some reason people of asian descent are crazy for spam Well, they make it. I know in hawaii. They have it in like sushi rolls and stuff like that imagine they do in japan too Yeah, it's um, I haven't seen it in japan. Spusy. Yeah, it's called. Um, sam spam musubi It's a slice of spam. Okay on a slab of rice wrapped in nori. Yeah, which is seaweed. Sure. There's your same Oh, that's nothing else. Not even like avocado or roe or anything like that No, it's spam man. All right

Is it cooked or is it raw? It looked cooked in the picture. I saw well. I'm sure you can find it any way you want It's all cooked, but it was for like cooked again. Right. Okay. Um, and in it in hawaii also burger king and mcdonald's You can find like spam rice and eggs on their menu their breakfast menu. Yeah, it's everywhere It is it is ubiquitous and they're nearing their eight billionth can of spam right Pushing it out there. Yeah. All right. So that's the history Oh, we should also say the hormone corporation is um Often like alleged often has alleged unfair labor practices and stuff like that these days. Oh really? Um, but j. Hormel was dubbed by I think fortune magazine the red capitalist

Because he was really progressive with labor relations in a good way. Yeah There was like a three-day strike once and he had a platform built So he could meet with the labor leaders and he hammered out things like um an annual wage Uh a 52 weeks notice before termination for workers. Wow a year like a year from now you're going to be laid off Um profit sharing all this stuff that was unheard of he became like a really like and he managed to To create really good relations with his employees which helped, you know get them to really work hard to turn this stuff out I'd say 52 weeks is almost foolish as an employer. Yeah, because when it nears it's like no, no, we need you Right. Don't worry about that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's the spam history now

We should talk a little bit josh about spam production because it's pretty neat. Oh Uh, like we said, austin minnesota and freemont nebraska is where it's made here in the states And it is such a highly automated process that apparently it only takes 13 workers. Yeah to run the spam factory Yeah, and imagine a lot of those are shaving trimming ham because uh Ed says pig pieces arrive at the plant Uh machine across the street. Yeah. Oh, is it really? Yeah, they grow the or grow the pigs

They they grow and kill the pigs across the street Uh, the machines remove the pork from the bone, but the ham is trimmed by hand. Mm-hmm They grind it up into 8 000 pound batches flash cool it Blend it and mix it with the other stuff And then pipe it. Oh, I love it when meat is pipe Pipe it to a conveyor belt where it's pumped in a can and sealed shut Right off the bat. Right and then it's cooked

Right it is cooked in these um in the can it's cooked in the can right and these six story Cookers that can hold up to like 66 000 cans at a time Which is something because I think they they all of the um The capacity for all of I think five spam factories is something like um 44 000 cans an hour Wow, so they need this huge capacity to cook that many cans at once your stomach's growling I would eat a spam right now I almost I thought about bringing some in

Because we kind of regretted with the twinkie cast not eating twinkies live on the air, but um, yeah spam. Jerry. Do you have any spam? She's fresh out. Okay, nothing fresh about it. Uh, so it is cooked in the can uh that kills the bacteria and obviously cooks it wash it and cool it And then applied the plastic label uh used to be lithographed on the can itself Which I remember and it had a different picture. It had a loaf of spam with clothes in it Yeah, and now it's a spam burger. I prefer the old picture Yeah, and that the the lithographic the lithograph went away in I think 97 And they went with probably the cheaper plastic wrap. Yeah on the can. I imagine that's why they did it

Lithography is not cheap Um, and then it is shipped all over the country and then they license it like I guess they they probably don't ship it all over Well, they probably ship it to you know the ones here the two and the one in Nebraska and the one in minnesota supply North america south america and australia Okay, yeah, and they say on the hormone website if you've ever wondered what spam tastes like It is a quote wonderful combination of a savory salty sweet taste that will make your taste buds dance I know they did a lot of self-promotion on the official website if you ask me dance and taste. Oh, yeah, of course It was like did you go through all the questions?

It was like, how should I eat spam eat delicious spam any way you deliciously spammy want to spam They have a museum of course the spam museum, which is free, uh, which is as it should be And it sounds awesome. Did you read the roadside america article on it? Yeah, and I looked at some of the pictures too It's it's cool. Like it's a cool museum. There was one guide on the roadside america article named john Who seemed to tell it like it is like he talked about the hog place across the street He's like they slaughter 20 000 head of hog across the street there every day It's like at the spam That's in the spam museum. Yeah, it was one of the guides. Oh, wow

And uh, apparently they employ retired spam factory workers as guides And this guy was just like a straight shooter. All right. Yeah, so if you go you should ask for john Oh, really? That's what I that's what I gathered. I can't wait to hear from people from minnesota about this That live near there. I wonder what the oh man the smell that gives off it. It stinks Uh, so let's get to the health benefits of spam It's not healthy It's not apparently a 12 ounce can which is the standard size Yeah, there's two sizes the 12 and then nine

Uh, the seven but if you're eating spam, you're going for the 12. Yeah, that's the one you normally see sure the 12 ounce can That little 12 ounce can has six servings in it Yeah, I would say that's about a slice Roughly, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I'd say like a sort of thickish slice is a serving So there's six of them in there six so so one slice basically Has 30 a third of your recommended intake of daily of sodium. Yeah, so a full can is 198 percent of your daily sodium intake. Yeah, that's two times what you should be eating. Yes um, it has a

Lot of saturated fat a lot of fat and a lot of it is saturated 96 grams in a total in a 12 ounce can which and you always got to do the big mac comparison Uh, a single can of spam is a little bit less than three big macs Wow stuffed in that little can wow Uh, they do have reduced sodium and light versions They do We need to point that out. Who's eating that the health conscious spam eater. Yeah I mean, surely people are eating it. Yeah, they're going down the grocery store island going like

I could go for the spam, but I really should watch myself and I'll get the spam light All right. I need to point out in fairness We're we're making some jokes here about spam eaters, but But there are poor people who rely on things like spam And I just want to point that I don't want people to write and say, you know, like like I used to have one I don't want to the golden pantry in Athens. I would have these daily Like cheap hourly workers come in and buy like potted meat and spin a sausage is huge And they would spend literally like the little pack of crackers and the potted meat was their lunch

And they would spend like a dollar fifty on it because it couldn't afford anything else So we're not making fun of those people. We're making fun of rich people who eat spam I'm not making fun of anybody. Okay. Um, and actually if you bring that up Because you brought that up spam was born out of the depression Yeah, well exactly and apparently now during the recession its production is through the roof again See there it's a demand is just crazy for it. So we're not mocking but spam And they they seem to take it. I mean, it's all advertising for them. They've embraced the The culture of spam and everything that it entails and

And it's just so it's the cheesiest meat around. It's impossible to not make fun of Do you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. It's a pop culture icon, which is why we're doing this podcast Exactly. We're not doing one on uh Well, I guess we could do one of the in sausages Also made by horn male. I ate one not too long ago at at uh The school of humans Wow, they serve Vienna sausages at their uh, little rat party. Nice and uh, they taste exactly the same as I remember I've never tasted one, but I can tell just by looking at it exactly what it tastes like. It's sort of baloney-esque. Yeah

in a tube To Hey friends when you're staying at an air bnb, you might be like me wondering could my place be an air bnb? And if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in manitoba who got the idea to air bnb the backyard guest house of her childhood home Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an air bnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host on the podcast paydude the 90s called david lasher and christine taylor stars of the cold classic show

Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're gonna use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it It's a podcast packed with interviews co-stars friends and non-stop references to the best decade ever Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair Do you remember aol instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your game boy blowing on it and popping it back in As we take you back to the 90s Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app ample podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts All right, so uh there has been some research that suggests That potted and processed meats might increase the risk of cancer. Yes, the FDA still says no, no, it's fine But there's 2005 was a big year for that. Was that the university hawaii study? Yeah And they found that 67 percent you're 67 percent more likely develop

pancreatic cancer if you consume large amounts of processed meats, right? And the reason why is because that sodium nitrite that's what they think sodium Well, this is this is why they think it that's correlated, right? Sodium nitrite itself is not a core or carcinogen that that preservative that they put in. Yeah But if you combined nitrite with amines and amines are found in meat Um when they combine and they're metabolized and they combine they form nitro Samines nitrosamines Yeah, yeah, man. I wish I would have said that right the first time

Um, those are carcinogen most of them are. Um, I can't remember who did it, but somebody sampled 300 Nitrosamines and 90 percent of them are carcinogenic um, so we can make As as far as people think um nitrite Into nitrosin nitrosamines. So if we're eating cured meat We're converting it into a carcinogen in our body. That's the fear cured meat or processed Process cured meat, but anything that has sodium nitrite in it, right bacon cooking bacon makes it carcinogenic by under this logic

Right, right, right. So there isn't like a direct causal link, which is why the FDA is not doing anything surprise surprise, but The logic is there. That's where the fear comes from. Okay. That's where the fear sets in And we mentioned that that was done by the University of Hawaii and that is because as we said Hawaii and Hawaiians love their spam Do you have any stats on that? Uh, yeah, what was it? Uh, I think the for every Hawaiian they uh They eat six pounds of spam per year I think so they definitely eat

I'm sorry three pounds. So so I've seen different numbers here I saw six cans per person per year if you spread it out across the population evenly Okay, as a whole the state eats eight million of the hundred million cans that are made Uh, that are consumed in the u.s. Every year, which seems low Yeah, I got all sorts of it's all over the place the numbers are all over the place But Hawaii leads the nation in spam consumption. Well, and they said it's far and away so they didn't they didn't tell me who a second place Um, I imagine Georgia ranks It's probably up there top 10 scrapple. I'll bet Georgia leads in scrapple consumption

I bet California is pretty low on the list of spam. I would think so. Yeah Um, but yes, Hawaii is crazy for if you can find it at a mcdonald's It's it means that it's part of your local culture and remembering 51st dates. It was a big big thing Uh, sort of saw that but don't remember the spam references It was uh, yeah anytime they were at the restaurant. There was like some spam joke Okay, I think I might have checked out at like the 25th first date It was a cute movie That drew Barrymore. I love her

Uh, we have to mention Monty python's flying circus. Yeah, because they uh, a had the Broadway show or have spam a lot sets are running I think so somewhere. I'm sure it's on the road big hit and in the 1970s Their awesome show the flying circus was uh, they had a very famous skit about spam. Did you watch it? Yeah, I watch it again today. It's hilarious. I've seen it before. I think my favorite part is The beginning when the couple just comes down on wires into the chairs. Yeah, I liked who played the wife. Was it Terry Gilliam? No I think it oh shoot. I can't remember his name. Was it the other Terry? Terry Jones, maybe okay

I'm not sure. He was hilarious in it. Oh, hey spam And the joke was that there's spam is on the menu all over the place in this diner in England And that there's also a big group of vikings That start singing a spam song right in the diner It's just just just type in Monty Python spam and go for the one that has three million views is vintage um a little uh Back to the history for a second Hormel was so involved in the war effort that they had a wartime mascot called slammin spammy

I did not see that which was an armed pig throwing grenades. Really? Yeah. Wow ostensibly at um Hitler oh, of course and tojo. Sure. Yeah, Hitler. Yeah You gotta throw spam at Hitler. No throwing grenades. Oh They weren't made of spam No, they were grenades. Oh, okay. He was like he didn't even look like a cute pig. He looked like a Like the kind of pig you'd see like painted on the front of an airplane in world war two

Okay, I thought it they were throwing like spam grenades. No No, you wanted to keep the spam from the nazis. Oh, that would help them Yeah, you don't want them doing you want to you want to ring death upon them not spam Right. All right, that makes sense. Although if you drop spam from high enough, it would kill you Yeah, I guess it wouldn't be very good marketing if you're throwing Spam to try and stop the enemy. He really can't Uh, what else we got? We have well, we should talk about the email Um version of spam and where that came from

Uh, the story I got Is that in the early days of the internets Uh, remember bulletin boards? Mm-hmm. If a bulletin board user Wanted to uh scroll you off the screen They just started typing spam and copy pasting it until you were Removed from the screen. Huh, that's what I heard. That's a good one And then and they got that from the money python thing evidently and then early chat rooms same thing Uh, it was initially called flooding and then simply spamming and then eventually the email version came around nice

And it does not stand for stupid pointless annoying message Yeah, that's stupid. That's just a fault. So that makes me want to beat someone up Uh, what else we got? Uh, you My personal experience with spam has been pretty pleasant. Let's hear it. Um, let's see. I've had it in curry It's very very good in curry with rice. Nice. Um, I was in switzerland once I had uh, Metzger Roche D which is one of the greatest things I've ever had in my entire life It's um, like fried hash brown potatoes

slice of fried spam Fried eggs and then this divine gravy. That's so good. And I ate that as often as I could Surely I've mentioned it before. Metzger Roche D. You throw some french fries on there and you're at, uh, permanis Yeah, I've never had permanis Uh, Muppet treasure island featured a character um called Spam SPA apostrophe AM. Is that what that was on? Yeah, okay, and he was a big, um, Warthog who

Also wore a necklace of shrunken pig heads. Hmm. So that kind of ties back in with our shrunken head thing So he was nuts. He was nuts and it's the Hormel company sued the Jim Hinton company uh for quote a noxious appealing wild boar who was quote Intentionally portrayed to be evil in poor sign form Names spam. I guess it called him spam and the Hinton company was like we're just kidding around like can we settle this it's Get a sense of humor and I think it was settled. I don't I don't think either that or they just lost the lawsuit. Yeah I got a world record for you. Oh, yeah, let's hear it Richard Lefevre

or LeFarve 86 pounds of spam in 12 minutes Wow And I think he holds the record still wait, hold on you keep talking I'm gonna do some math and there is uh, if you want to go there are different spam festivals But I think the big daddy is in Waikiki the Waikiki spam jam Um, they're just tell their eighth one in april and I believe they hold it every year in april and that is where lovers of spam congregate to trade recipes and uh

Uh spam related products like t-shirts and mugs and christmas ornaments and just all things spam There's spam sculpting contests too. Yeah, um, how many how how fast did that guy eat six pounds 12 minutes? He ate Um eight cans of spam eight 12 ounce cannons of spam in 12 minutes then so what's that what's the sodium in that? Oh, uh, I didn't do that math Well, if that was 200 of your daily intake in a can so he ate 800 percent 1600 Yeah, 1600 percent of his sodium intake for the day in 12 minutes And he'd love to tell about it as far as I know. Yeah, he's alive and well Let's spam

I got nothing else. You know, I would like to do some time barbie I'll bet that would be fascinating that lawsuit you mentioned like made me think of barbie Mattel loves to sue anybody and everybody they can you just want to push push their buttons. No, it's just interesting Yeah, we've had um, I sort of like these pop culture ones. We had someone say we should do Uh peanuts charles schultz's peanuts, you know, I looked into that and I may be writing the article So maybe we'll do that. That would be awesome. Yeah, and we're long over right. Yeah We're long overdue for the dr. Seuss podcast too. Okay. Well, there you go. Keep listening because it'll eventually get better Okay, that's what we just basically promised if you want to learn more about spam and

Read about egg grabbinowski's take on it. He tries it for the first time while he's writing this article And there's a step-by-step picture graph of how to make a fried Spam and cheese sandwich Just type spam Actually, we should probably do everybody a favor go to your favorite search engine type Spam food. Yeah, and then how stuff works and it will bring up the spam article. Is it the number one hit? It's it's up there, but it's tough to find on our site because so much computer spam articles come up Uh, do that and and then go into the handy search bar and type whatever you want

And I I said handy search bars. So that means it's time for listening man Yes, josh, I'm gonna call this uh From kristin our 16 year old fan from toronto, which is in canada She has she sent us a really nice email about how she listens to other family And how she learns things and uh all the different things she's learned and then she got to a ps which i'll skip to ps i've always wondered how do you guys distribute your information so evenly Between the two of you. Maybe it's just me, but I remember in elementary school almost every group presentation ended And either tears or a fight because someone spoke more than their fair share

I know you guys aren't in the fifth grade anymore But you seem like nice civil guys, but be honest Have you ever had any disagreements off the air over someone stealing the thunder and if you haven't How do you avoid that because your listeners would want to know? Putting us on the spot. Yeah I think it's just It's equitable, you know some shows I

Might speak a little more some josh does and it's just it does no good I think you grow up a little bit and you realize this just It's silly to think of things like that. Yeah, and I think by doing that We've just kind of even out and I think also if one of us gets the impression that we're talking too much We usually tee the other one up Yeah That's pretty much it It's kind of a boring answer, wouldn't it?

Ta-da, it's it's just not being in fifth grade anymore. I think I remember I don't think I wanted the spotlight in the fifth grade. Like I think I was one of those was like, I'll write it and you You're like the evil genius behind the scenes Dance puppets. Yeah. Yeah. So there's your answer fish bulb Um, if you have a question for us, you want to look behind the scenes. It's fine. Who's a Kristen Kristen from Toronto. Thank you Kristen from Toronto If you have a question for us, you want to peek behind the scenes? We'll answer anything, but we probably won't but we'll say we will Because we like interesting questions. I agreed

You can send them to Stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com On the podcast hey, dude the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show hey, dude Bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces We're going to use hey, dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it

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