If you’ve ever visited Hawaii you may have noticed that there’s a surprising amount of food that revolves around Spam (the canned pork shoulder and ham product). In fact the state consumes an estimated 7 million cans of the iconic luncheon meat each year among its population of just 1.4 million. While there are many ways to take Spam to the next level many in the Aloha State enjoy it as musubi: sliced and fried then stuffed into toasted nori seaweed alongside a piece of rice in a sushi-like fashion. Before Spam is packaged it’s typically seasoned and cooked with sauces and other ingredients to enhance its flavor.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 Munchies | 2021-12-05 15:00:31 |  1,434,791 Views |
Why We Eat: Spam Musubi
Spam musubi is considered a staple snack in Hawaii but its origin story is difficult to trace. However it is generally accepted that Spam became a major part of Hawaiian cuisine around World War II just a few years after the canned meat product first hit shelves in the 1930s. The official story from Hormel Foods (the company that produces Spam) is that soldiers ate it during wartime after which it became popular with the general population. However it was not a regular part of military rations and many non-GIs likely ate it during the war as part of food rationing programs for which Spam is an obvious candidate due to its long shelf life. Additionally Hawaii's distance from the continental United States meant that it had less access to other foods.
So if war is how Spam entered Hawaiian cuisine what about Spam musubi specifically? Its creation isn’t entirely clear but it’s generally credited to a Japanese-American woman named Barbara Funamura who may have created it from ingredients she had on hand at the time primarily Japanese condiments like soy sauce and mirin. Some recipes call for oyster sauce (though it’s actually Chinese in origin) rice vinegar and/or furikake a Japanese condiment similar to other umami-rich toppings made with nori that often include dried seafood (often added to rice). Depending on how it’s cooked Spam can end up with a richly glazed finish resembling teriyaki (sugar is often added to aid in caramelization).
Another theory is that Spam musubi originated in internment camps where Japanese-Americans were held because Spam was one of the few foods they had on hand. Either way it definitely developed out of Japanese-American culture. Perhaps because Spam was so prevalent in Hawaii during the war it lost its reputation as an undesirable processed meat and became normalized in Hawaiian cuisine. As a result Spam musubi didn't suddenly become popular at one point or for one reason (outside of the popularization of Spam in Hawaii) but gradually developed into a common snack; with such a large Japanese population on the islands Hawaiians were likely drawn to the ingredients in Spam musubi.
