One Item I Bet Is Not On Your Holiday Table

by Kevin Burton

   It starts with turkey or ham, ham or turkey, two Thanksgiving staples.

   Thanksgiving is often called Turkey Day, which I guess makes turkey 1 and ham 1A as Thanksgiving fare. 

   Different families have fun filling in the rest.  My mother always wants that corn with the little red things in it.  At no other time of year does she want this. 

   I love mashed potatoes and gravy, hate cranberry sauce.  I love green beans, don’t like most stuffing.  Pass me the rolls and veggie tray, send the sweet potatoes on down the line.

   We all have our favorites.

   On most tables you run out of room. So you have some things on the kitchen counter or on some other table, especially since I didn’t even mention dessert yet.

   You have to call a halt to it at some point though. So as you’re considering those last few dishes to make that celebration complete, why not consider, Spam?  Is there room on your holiday table and in your heart, for Spam?

   Hey, don’t look at me like that, somebody out there is still buying Spam. That’s why it has shelf space at a grocery store near you.   And, there is a turkey-flavored Spam.  Did you know that?  Wouldn’t that just be perfect? 

   Now you probably already have your feast all planned for this year.  You may not have time to buy any Spam.  But in case you do, the Spam varieties beside the original are turkey, bacon, black pepper, less sodium, lite Spam and Spam singles for sandwiches. 

   Before we get too far from that list, let’s discuss the concept of less sodium Spam. Since Spam is approximately 91.2 percent salt, what exactly does less sodium Spam mean, only 75 percent?

   You cut the top off a box of Morton salt, drop in a two-ounce chunk of pork and boom, you’ve got home-made Spam.

   OK, so we exaggerate just a little to prove a larger point. If you want the accurate facts on Spam, don’t go to the Hormel website.  Spam has its own website, www.spam.com. There you can learn that Spam is made of “pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrate.”

   The first time I got on this website, I kid you not, Hormel was touting without irony, the fact that Monty Python “sang the praises of Spam.”  Some of these cold-cash bloodless corporate types obviously weren’t hip to Python! 

   Yes Python sang, but those weren’t praises.  I couldn’t find any reference to Python on the site today. Google “Monty Python Spam” to get their delicious treatment of the subject.

   So the picture I painted above has Spam as one of several side item choices for Thanksgiving. You go to someone else’s dinner, see it on the side and load your plate with other things.  You pretend you didn’t see it.  Then later when someone points it out to you, you can say, probably quite accurately, “I just couldn’t eat another bite!”

   Now imagine turkey Spam as the main course, the big bird, the centerpiece!  How many cans would it take?  What would you do?  Instant Vegan diet? 

   You could feign illness, suddenly take on a queasy look. Detroit Lions football might help with that.

   These are savory thoughts to chew on of course and you better stick to chewing thoughts. It’s so hard to chew with tongue so firmly in cheek.