Spam Delight
An ode to SPAM, a paradoxical product of excess and thrift, a symbol of both American imperialism and Filipino nostalgia.
Huh. Ben flipped the blue tin over. SPAM.
His parents’ basement was musty, but no different than it had been in years past. Here, he had played sweaty rounds of make-believe spies with his cousins and gobbled down rustic assemblages of potluck food off of styrofoam plates. Titos and titas would get drunk on Costco wine and idle gossip while Ben and his sister would pick at the buffet. He looked up at the high window as it spiraled in light where the basement peaked above ground. The sun warmed the cold tile where warmer feet used to pad.
Now, surrounded by piles of items accumulated over a lifetime of holiday sales, Ben felt reassured in the room’s stagnancy. The karaoke mic was still plugged into the TV in the corner. The couch was still lumpy and their graduation pictures were still on the wall. What had changed since he had left? He sighed and looked back down. In a sweeping display of dedication to the Marie Kondo method, his parents enlisted him to sort through the basement while they traveled for the month. He had to keep what “sparked joy.” They left behind vaguely sorted stacks of household detritus. He found a couple things: an old “All About Me!” worksheet from the first grade, his sister’s long-lost shirt, a slightly deflated volleyball.
And a single tin of SPAM.
Ben had only seen it on TV programs like “Antique Roadshow,” where it was said to be worth unspeakable amounts. Zero after zero would tumble by on the scrolling caption, shock drooping over the jowls of its unsuspecting owners. Why do they have this? Ben assumed they must have genuinely forgotten—it was crammed into the bottom corner of a cardboard box filled with other sundry kitchen items, nestled between a container of salted peanuts and mystery dried chilis… or was it shrimp?
“And so, Ben decided he was going to try it. To spark a little joy.”
He wouldn’t call it mint condition either. The yellow bubble letters were faded with age, and the plastic paper felt soft over the cold metal of the tin. And so he handled it delicately. Ben evaluated his choices. He was too lazy to figure out how to sell it. Besides, his parents were comfortably settling into their retirement fund, and frankly, he was a little bitter at the task at hand.
And so, Ben decided he was going to try it. To spark a little joy.
He laughed lamely at his joke and set to work, switching on an episode of some Netflix special called “SPAM Delight!” while he continued to peruse the family scraps.
The show’s host cackled. “From low-brow comfort food to a gourmet centerpiece, SPAM has enamored the world with its flavor!”
Ben began stacking apparently unread novels in a donation box.
“Said to be nonperishable, its flavor only evolves over time. Its ingredients are unreplicable, taste unmatched, expiration date unknown.”
“He wondered if its contents had aged to make him who he was today.”
Ben laughed at a self-help book for raising “B+ kids” his mother read long ago. He wondered if its contents had aged to make him who he was today.
“Even SPAM’s shape was optimized for efficient storage and utility. A pinnacle of scientific innovation.”
Ben grunted with effort as he pushed aside the book box and moved onto a garbage bag full of old clothes, either to be donated to Goodwill or for his mother to repurpose as kitchen rags.
“While an American innovation, SPAM found its way overseas thanks to its practical wartime uses and was welcomed lovingly by people abroad.”
On screen, chefs delicately handled the meat. They sliced and fried, carefully wiping blades on crisp, white aprons and leaving behind a smear of oil. Ben smiled to see the Philippines on screen, but frowned at an oil splotch on a forgotten favorite shirt he was folding.
“Still, its charms were revealed too abruptly through the combination of food scarcity and the innovation of Pacific home chefs. People in the West learned that SPAM was not just pragmatic, it held immense culinary promise.”
An internet search showed Ben he could salvage his shirt with a hack involving grease-fighting dish soap.
“Kitchens simultaneously began to buy up and deplete the stock. For a brief flash it inundated restaurants, trendy startups and Michelin-starred meals alike. Soon it was nowhere to be found, passed down as heirlooms, or hidden in cellars deep beneath the earth to age.”
Ben watched closely. He didn’t want to mess it up when it became his turn. The bag of clothes sagged in his lap. It looked pretty straightforward: pull the tab open, chop and fry. Some chefs brushed it until it turned a glossy amber with soy sauce and sugar, or folded it into piles of fried rice with peas and carrots. He dragged the garbage bag of clothes to a corner, woefully noted that the basement looked worse than when he arrived. But that’s always the case when one cleans up: It looks terrible first… right? But Ben turned away — he was hungry.
Upstairs, the pantry was stocked. Ben was no stranger to the kitchen after years of shadowing his parents as they cooked. Together they labored to make dishes abundant enough to take home and worthy enough to enjoy for weeks after. The recipe he had selected was also a familiar one: a variant of a Filipino breakfast his parents served on lazy Saturdays when no one was rushing to school or church. Ben fired up the rice cooker, rinsing between the grains until the water came out clear, grumbling when he lost a few to the sink drain. The little pot puttered away, and so he turned to the more challenging task at hand.
Ben shyly pinched the tab on the can of SPAM, braced himself and peeled it back. He cut it out with a butter knife and it plunked onto his cutting board, an unassuming pink loaf, a little jagged around the edges despite his best efforts.
“They were scraps of a life lived, smelling like an incomprehensible swirl of cookouts, school art fairs and winter seasons.”
Huh. It did look pretty weird after all. He wrinkled his nose. It smelled like cat food. Was it so ahead of its time that he couldn’t even identify it? The contents of the can only read in faded letters: “pork with ham meat added.” Ugh. It smelled like pork with ham meat added. Discards stuffed into a can. Ben thought about the crammed boxes downstairs, packed with everything but what was necessary, everything he needed to get rid of. They were scraps of a life lived, smelling like an incomprehensible swirl of cookouts, school art fairs and winter seasons. He sniffed the SPAM again, and the odor escaped description.
He sliced the SPAM into moderate slabs and dropped them into the sizzling pan. Fat pooled out of its pores and smoked the edges into a crisp as Ben cut tomatoes on the side. He skidded a spatula underneath and flipped each slice over to reveal a golden-pink crust, small bubbles gurgling out where oil remained. The finished rice was scooped into a pan with garlic and oil, and salt — he couldn’t forget salt.
Ben hummed as he picked up speed, the theme song for “SPAM Delight!” The show panned over crammed shelves of SPAM on sale for the holidays before its great rise. Ben wondered if his parents got this can on sale with all of the other junk downstairs. The SPAM was swiped up onto a plate, and the egg went onto the pan in its stead. An attentive Ben watched carefully to ensure it was fried to a crisp edge. The rice followed the SPAM, the egg followed suit. Tomatoes on the side.
Ben examined his work. It was sloppier than what the Netflix chefs had offered, but he wasn’t too disappointed. Gently, he pressed a knife into the SPAM, serrated teeth biting into a firm crust to reveal a pastel pink interior. He lifted it to his mouth and tasted it.
“Every taste seemed to be beaming out of him, and he felt a richness overflowing from the plate.”
Are there words to describe what followed? Spongy bacon? It was just as salty, not as smoky, but it had a breakfast meat quality to it, and “spongy bacon” did not do it justice. Ben had cut it to just the right thickness, allowing for a good proportion of crust to sponge, and he delighted in each bite. Crunch, sink, crunch. Garlic rice rose to meet pungent flesh, making quite an ecstatic stink, but as soon as he began to worry, cold watery tomato and creamy golden yolk immediately moved to nullify it. Remembering the chefs who glazed it with sugar, he dashed to the pantry for the bottle of ketchup, squirting a modest amount into the corner of the plate. He dabbed a little of it onto his fork, redness brightening up the pink, the yellow. He proceeded to taste the sweetness of the pork-with-ham-added, elevated now. Every taste seemed to be beaming out of him, and he felt a richness overflowing from the plate. The kitchen was enveloped in a slight haze, with smoke, fat and salt curing the air. A mere ten minutes passed as Ben ate, but for him, it felt like a lifetime.
Forlorn, Ben cleaned up, swiping his mother’s handmade napkin over his greased lips and leaving a small oil spot on it. He stepped downstairs and was promptly overwhelmed: The sorting situation was miserable, and the bag he set aside had spilled over and knocked down a box set of Al Jarreau CDs.
How had it come to this? Ben tucked himself between a bin of Beanie Babies from his youth and a mailing tube full of his sister’s art, making a small space for himself on the laminate floor. He was full, so it felt a little uncomfortable to fold himself this way, but he leaned into the task. He knew he had to finish before his parents returned to avoid unnecessary conversation with them about his sloppy handwriting (and perhaps, a missing can of SPAM). He found his pace, slicing through long-unopened boxes with a knife, crumpling old receipts into the trash, turning clothes into little rolls that would make Marie Kondo proud. Soon, the basement’s musk was tinged with the inexplicable smell of dust and loose change. Ben lost himself in throwing out the scraps, cutting away the fat.
After three days of sorting through notes passed between high school crushes, gift cards, forgotten wallets, and three IKEA wrenches, Ben found a box under the basement sink. In it, a whole case of SPAM was crammed for maximum efficiency (easily so given its shape) and for safe-keeping by his parents. They knew its worth, they had seen “Antique Roadshow” and “SPAM Delight! “on their evening Netflix marathons. Still, they were comfortably settling into their retirement fund, so they stowed it away for secret rainy mornings. It was still quite edible.
Illustrations by Nico Gavino
Exclusively for Mercado Vicente