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Disambiguation: this article is about the canned meat. For the Internet term, see Spam_(electronic).
SPAM is a canned meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation that has entered into folklore. SPAM luncheon meat is also used as an artistic medium in SPAM carving contests.
The labeled ingredients on the original SPAM are chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added, salt, water, sugar and sodium nitrite.
The name "SPAM" was chosen in the 1930s when the product, whose original name was far less glamorous, began to lose market share. The name was chosen from multiple entries in a naming contest. A Hormel official once stated that the original meaning of the name SPAM was "Shoulder of Pork And haM". According to writer Marguerite Patten in SPAM - The Cookbook, the name was suggested by Kenneth Daigneau, brother of the Hormel vice president and an actor. Other explanations of the origin of the term include "SPiced hAM", "Spiced Pork And haM", "Specially Processed Army Meat", and "SPAre hAM"; there are also some less-than-serious explanations, such as "Synthetically Produced Artificial Meat". The current official expansion is the acronym "Specially Processed Assorted Meat" because the SPAM Lite variety contains both pork and chicken meat. Nowadays it is even used for fish meat as well.
According to Hormel's trademark guidelines, you should spell SPAM with all capital letters and treat the mark as an adjective, following it with a more generic descriptor, for example "SPAM luncheon meat".
Most other luncheon meats are eaten cold, whereas fried or otherwise cooked SPAM is also popular.
Also of interest is a small local festival in Austin, Minnesota where Hormel corporate HQ is located. The event, known as SPAM Jam is a carnival type celebration which coincides with local Fourth of July festivities, featuring parades and fireworks which often relate to the popular luncheon meat.
Austin is also home to the SPAM Museum, and the Hormel plant in Austin produces the SPAM for most of North America and Europe.
As of 2003, SPAM is sold in 41 countries worldwide. The largest consumers of SPAM after the United States are the United Kingdom and South Korea. In the U.S., a can of SPAM is said to be consumed every 3.1 seconds. Among American states, Hawaii has the highest per-capita consumption of SPAM— 5.5 cans per second, though Guamanians beat that figure by over 45%. It is also a favourite among the people of Saipan.
SPAM was one of the few meats excluded from the British food rationing that began in World War II and continued for a number of years after the war and the British grew heartily tired of it. The British comedy troupe Monty Python used this as the context for their Spam sketch.
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev attributed donations of American supplies of SPAM for the ability of the Soviet Union to feed the Red Army during World War II.
SPAM is not to be confused with the sending of unsolicited emails, a practice which Hormel emphatically denounces (see spamming). Hormel does not object to the use of the slang term, but insists that it be spelt in lower-case so as to distinguish the slang term from the upper-case SPAM trademark. Hormel objects to SPAM's product identity (e.g. images of SPAM cans) being used in relation to unsolicited email.
An Internet joke exists around the notion of a little known religion called Spammism which worships the meat.
The Internet also spawned the not-so-subtle art form of SPAM Haiku; see for example The SPAM Haiku Archive (http://mit.edu/jync/www/spam).
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