Monday, February 19, 2024 Minnesota Meanderings: The Spam Museum

We have a thing in Minnesota called the Spam Museum. That fact, all by itself, is enough to make one chuckle. Hubby and I have wanted to go to the Spam Museum for many years because it’s there. The existence of a Spam Museum raises certain questions in one’s mind and we wanted to answer them. Curiosity and all that. So off we went to Austin, Minnesota for a look-see.

First of all, the Spam Museum is free, which upon reflection of its contents, was a fair price. This is not an insult to the museum, but let’s be frank – walking around the museum is like entering into a large and interactive advertisement for spam. We’re doing the spam folks a favor by going there – and the advertising worked (more on that later).

I always thought the the word “Spam” came from the combination of the words “shoulder” and “ham,” and since spam is made from those two parts of the piggy, that seems reasonable, other than the fact that the resulting word would be “sham.” Back in 1936 when spam was created, there was a contest to name it. An actor at a party came up with the name “Spam” and won $100, but no one knows how he came up with it. There’s speculation that it’s a combination of the words “spiced ham.”

As we walked through reading things, someone came by and offered us a “spample,” cooked spam skewered with a pretzel. Delish! And by the way, I saw a photo of spam cookies that looked surprisingly good to me. Maybe I was just hungry. The phrase “spam cookie” seems like an oxymoron, though.

We meandered through the small museum, looking at all the creative ways that different countries eat spam. The highest per capita consumption of spam is in Hawaii, by the way. The history section of the museum mostly details how extensively it was used during war times as food for soldiers (and for those at home). It was a cheap way to get meat that wouldn’t spoil. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a letter to Hormel Foods in celebration of their 75th anniversary and commented “I ate my share of SPAM, along with millions of soldiers. I’ll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it. As a former Commander-in-Chief, I officially forgive you of your only sin – sending us so much of it.” Ha ha!

When you enter the museum you read a little brochure that tells you that you’ll have an opportunity to can some spam yourself! This sounded like an exciting proposition, but it turned out to be fake news. In reality, there was a little station for kids (and kids-at-heart) to don aprons, put a spam-like bean bag in a plastic can, cover it, pretend to cook it in a fake oven, and then squeeze a cloth label around the can. You could time yourself to see how fast you could do it. My second time was way better than my first, but I couldn’t get Kris to try to beat my record.

Onward to the entertainment section where a television was running the famous Monty Python skit about spam. I laughed so hard. That’s where we took our selfie, of course.

We went to the gift store where they sold boxed variety sets of spam, along with every manner of spam clothing and spam souvenirs. I bought a sticker, but we decided we could buy spam cheaper at a grocery store, so we stopped by one on the way home and picked up four cans. If you’ve never had it, give it a try! (I sort of feel like Hormel should pay me for this blog post, which almost amounts to another ad for SPAM).

Next: Bell Museum of Natural History

I’ll probably delete this in the morning whilst eating a spam omelet.