Spam Sushi

My brother Kevin sent round an e-mail the other day about an all-Spam restaurant that opened in the Philippines recently, and for some reason the article prompted a cascade of Spam-related e-mails from his friends and family. When the discussion turned to Hawaii and Spam, I felt I had to weigh in.

Further to the various messages about Hawaii and Spam (including an apparently unfounded rumor that Spam cans in Hawaii have pictures of hula dancers on them), I've just dug up a picture I took here in Tokyo a while back. This is a sign on a kiosk in a subway station. As you can see, the product for sale is Spam Sushi. The sign says, "It's popular in Hawaii!! Hot and delicious!" I can't say for sure whether it is in fact delicious, because I was trying to keep from barfing as I snapped the shutter. Such, unfortunately, is the pathetic face of Japanese-Hawaiian cuisine as known to most Japanese. This sort of unfortunate cross-cultural exchange almost makes me wish that Commodore Perry had stayed home. (And I'm a big Spam fan, actually.)

(OK, OK, for those who like to pick nits, technically this isn't called "Spam Sushi" in Japanese, but rather "Spam Musubi," because the rice is not flavored with vinegar. But this is a very fine point; for you and me, the term "Spam Sushi" is just fine, I think.)

Comments

[B.A.]

My husband grew up on Spam, and I've learned to love it too. He used to travel quite a bit with his old job, duing one trip he began discussing cooking with a native Hawaiian friend. She mentioned "Spam sushi", which sounds funny, but actually tured out to be a very good, and fun dish. His old boss only like "new wave" or "haute cuisene" so she thought it was a travisty to "deface sushi in such a way". Pity, she never would even try it......it's pretty good! Oh well, more for me!