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Spam, Vienna Sausage, and WW2 soldiers, from Uncle Ken's Corner Table
9/9/08
I still remember my Obachan saying back in the l940s when I was a kid, that Americans were so wonderful for inventing SPAM and VIENNA SAUSAGE. And that Japan didn't have anything like Spam. By that time, plantation pay was getting better, and workers were able to buy food from grocers, and electricity was a reality in most homes, even on the plantations.
She always said that Spam was "mezurashii" because on the Plantation, wives always had to worry about preparing Lunch Buckets for their husbands who were going out in the fields. And the Okazu had to be something which would not spoil in the hot sun. When Spam was introduced to the islands in the '40's, it became an instant hit. Because of it's saltiness, it could withstand being in the bento pail until lunchtime without spoiling or getting rancid. You recall the last time, I talked about the pre-Spam days when the wives cooked fish and chicken in sugar-shoyu to preserve it in lunch pails. Now, with the introduction of Spam and Vienna Sausage, wives could open a can in the morning and fry the Spam or Viennas, and pack them in the lunch pail, and not have to worry about spoilage. And most husbands loved the salty Spam with rice and tsukemono in their lunch pails. To this day, Spam and Rice is a local favorite, even for those who have never set foot on a plantation. And it even explains why Spam Musubi is so popular among locals.
Lots of accounts credit the Military presence in the '40's for the introduction of Spam to the islands, but I haven't seen any account about why the Local Residents accepted Spam so readily. It happened on the Plantation! Of course most of the military servicemen hated Spam, and would bring cans of Spam to local residents in exchange for fresh fruits, a home-cooked meal, or just "hanging out" with local families. Spam in the local markets was a "rationed" item during World War II. You were limited in the number of cans you could buy per month. Most items that came by ships from the mainland to the islands were rationed. So Spam was a precious commodity that the servicemen could provide readily.
I still recall the servicemen who used to "hang out" at my auntie & uncle's home in Hilo on the weekends. They would bring Spam or whatever they could, and my auntie would cook a meal for them. My mom would make Potato Salad, and home-made Cake and Cookies (no such thing as instant Duncan Hines or Pillsbury in those days), and bring it over.. No TV, no videos. So the servicemen brought their favorite "78 rpm" records and played them on my uncle's "crank-up Phonograph". Some of them brought their guitars which they had brought with them from home, and played along and sang with the scratchy low-fi records. I just sat on the floor and listed to the stories the guys told, and the music they played.
In the early days of World War II, Hawaii was a stop-over for service personnel from the mainland who were being shipped overseas to the Pacific War. The purpose was to get guys from the cities like New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia acclimated and accustomed to the warm, humid, mosquito-filled atmosphere of the tropics where most of them were headed. It was the last bit of peace, that many of them would ever see. For the next year or so, they would be living in mud, rain, humidity and bugs.
After a few weeks in Hawaii, they were shipped off to places like Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Guam and Iwo Jima. Many of the men who spent their final weekends at my Auntie & Uncle's house, asked if they could leave or store their Guitars and mementos at their house. They couldn't lug such items with them in their duffel bags onto the battlefield. Of course, the family said OK. For most of the men, we received letters from them after they reached Wake Island and the other conflicted areas. But the letters became fewer and fewer. And after the War, a couple of them wrote to ask us to mail their possessions to them in Brooklyn or Boston. But for most of the men, we never heard from them again. And the thing is that we never even got to know their full names and addresses so that we could mail their stored possessions back to them or their families. And to this day, the silence from the battlefields in the Pacific has me wondering what happened to those guys in the War. We only knew them by their last names: Greenstein, Cicarello, Horowitz, Giovanelli, and others.
And while those guys, who fought for our freedoms in the "Big War", may now be mostly gone, their impact on our food preferences still resonates today. We, In Hawaii, eat Spam and Vienna Sausages with abandon. And we enjoy it! We are the highest per capita Spam consumers in the nation. Those guys in uniform may have hated Spam and made it the butt of bad food jokes, but they have given us a local food tradition that lives on. Every time we order a plate of Spam and Eggs, or a Spam Omelet, or eat a Spam Musubi, remember the guys in uniform who started it all, and how our Plantation heritage made it all come together.
Mahalo and thanks for stopping by!
Uncle Ken
