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Comment by kayo_20211030 | Hacker News Reader

kayo_20211030

A good read. I'm glad Spam got a little mention. Terribly underrated IMO.

I only had it recently for the first time. Despite being widely seen in the US as a "poor people" food, inflation seems to have hit Spam pretty hard--I'm pretty sure the tin was over $4!

That said, while it looked rather unappetizing in its canned loaf shape, it's mostly pork shoulder, and after I cubed it and pan-fried it for a bit, it tasted like a crunchier ham steak. It was quite delightful when mixed into fried rice.

> a crunchier ham steak. It was quite delightful

Counterexample: spam fritters. Those and badly cooked ox liver were the two worst school dinners I ever had to force down (Brit, 1970s)

Ugh yeah and semolina for pudding. I can barely even say the word semolina without gagging.

And no, Miss, the jam splotch on top only makes it worse.

Semolina porridge is great if prepared perfectly, but if it has clumps the texture is absolutely awful.

I didn't eat semolina for literally decades after the UK school dinner experience. When I finally had some that was properly prepared it was delicious. Who knew.

And the spam fritters - that is a nightmare I had totally suppressed until it was just mentioned up above.

> that is a nightmare I had totally suppressed until it was just mentioned up above

Sorry! Perhaps I can defuse the situation a little bit by mentioning the hard brown tiles (of shortbread?) with the pink 'custard'. These weren't nauseating, just merely inedible.

I remember being called in to make my screaming little brother (he was 5 to my 9) eat this horrible crap. My brotherly advice - "Eat it or I will kill you". Frankly, it didn't work, and I could hardly eat the stuff myself.

It's also really good onigiri style with rice: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/49785/spam-musubi/

Oh God. Yes! A deli close to where I work sells them, handmade and wrapped in Saran, but you gotta be in early or they're gone.

About 20 years ago I had a co-worker, transplanted from her native Hawaii to the Seattle area. Her cubicle was very nearly a shrine to Spam: nothing reminded her of home quite as much as Spam ads and such-like.

Me, the occasional fried spam sandwich is a delicious indulgence.

I was recently at a local Asian food store in the Seattle area, and was amused to see some Spam™ plush toys on the shelves.

I assumed it indicated some customer-base with a significant level of nostalgia for the product.

When I went for the first time before COVID I was surprised McDoanlds had spam as an option.

I always hated spam and then I went to a party that was hosted by a Hawaiian. I didn’t even know an appetizer was spam, it was so delicious.

I think if people try a spam musubi first (a Hawaiian staple), they'll be more inclined to try other forms of spam.

I tried one out of a 7-11 in Hawaii and was terribly disappointed... to be fair, it was exactly as good as one would expect convenience store food to be.

South Korea treats spam as a luxury good - it's a part of gift baskets and it can be found in budae-jigae - army based stew [1] (sometimes along with canned beans in sauce)

[1] - https://youtu.be/-aO9pSOpA5Y

Is there an alternative that isn't as salty? Every time I've tried it (which is only a couple of times) I've found it incredibly salty :/

They make a reduced sodium variety. It's also best to think of it more like bacon than ham and use it as an accent.

Now I want to try a pizza accented by Spam :)

This is probably anathema to many, but I will cube spam and let it sit in a bowl of water for a few minutes. Likely leads to a huge reduction in salt and fat.

Salt, yes, but the fat won't dissolve into water.

The fats visibly rise to the surface and are easily poured/skimmed away.

Why would anyone do such a thing? The poor canned pork shoulder! Fats provide energy and keep the stomach full for a long time, nevermind the flavour in the fat. People should eat more carbohydrates and fat and less protein, to give their liver and kidneys a break.

all carbohydrates are empty calories. if you fully eliminate fat and protein from your diet, you will wither and die. if you fully eliminate carbs, you'll be fine.

> if you fully eliminate carbs, you'll be fine.

For some definition of "fine", at any rate. Outside of groups like the Inuit who eat a lot of organ meat to compensate, we don't have a great idea of what sort of long-term nutrient deficiencies you may accrue by eschewing all fibre and carbohydrate-based foods.

well, yes, you can't eliminate fruits and vegetables if you aren't supplementing micronutrients. I wasn't implying you can. I was just saying that carbohydrates themselves - glucose, fructose, and all the others - are not essential for us to function.

Yes, gluconeogenesis is a metabolic pathway, but it wouldn't be satisfactory to rely on in, just as it wouldn't be fun to live without spices. (Also, how do you manage to have sex with someone on their ketopaleo diet? Send them into the shower just before and eat Viagra because of the weird odour?)

I always suggest people buy the low sodium spam. It's easy to add salt to a recipe if you need it but spam by default includes so much that kind of limits the flexibility of what you do with it.

It's just a substitute for Bologna sausage... just handful of cans over few years with odd and specific recipes can be enjoyable, otherwise real sausages are simply better.

Spam kimbap is godlike, one of my favorite Korean dish

Underrated? It's objectively terrible for you.

Nothing is terrible for you in moderation. It is, however, objectively delicious and underrated.

Dimethylmercury is terrible for you even in moderation.

What’s a moderate amount of dimethylmercury? A molecule?

I'm not volunteering to find out, heh.

Half of the LD50? Lol

At first I thought you were saying that spam contained dimethylmercury, which prompted me to do a few panicked Google searches before re-reading the thread and grokking the context switch :-P

It's so fucking salty that it is near unpalatable! And I consume too much salt! How do you eat spam in earnest?

Salty for sure. But, gooood, at least to me! A sinful indulgence.

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