Posted on 12/07/2008 8:07:40 AM PST by vietvet67
In times of trouble the United States has historically turned to a tin of pink processed meat to see it through – and so it is again that sales of Spam are soaring as the recession bites.
They have shot up by more than 10 per cent in the past three months and the Hormel Foods Corporation has had to introduce a double shift at its factory in Austin, Minnesota, seven days a week to keep up with demand.
Spam costs only about $2.40 (£1.65) for a 12-ounce tin and keeps for ever, which earned it the slogan: meat with a pause button. Hungry consumers, desperate to cut back on spending but keen to put meat on the table, have been buying the product that “helped win the Second World War”.
The rise coincides with a record level of Americans using food stamps, the programme that helps the needy to buy food. More than 31.5 million Americans used the stamps in September – up by 17 per cent from a year ago, according to government data.
Spam was invented during the Great Depression by Jay Hormel, the son of the founder of the company. It is a brick of ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, potato starch and a hint of sodium nitrite “to help Spam keep its gorgeous pink color”.
Austin advertises itself as Spam-town and it boasts 13 restaurants with Spam on the menu. Johnny’s Spamarama menu includes eggs benedict with Spam for $7.35.
Employees are working flat out and next door the slaughter house butchers 19,000 pigs a day. “People are realising it’s not that bad a product,” said Dan Johnson, 55, who operates a 70ft (20m) oven in the factory.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Fried with eggs, oh my...
I've diced it into fried rice. That's good too.
I especially love that part!
Muslims in America will also be hurting to afford higher end cuts of meat, that is unless they are near a local goat farm.
And that sounds like a good way to control Muslims, tax the goats!
I’ve liked spam ever since it came out in WW2, I don’t know what everyone has against it.
Yeah.....really hard times. Around here, in a tourist town, you can get Denny's Grand slam breakfast for about $5.49.
Thanks! Still laughing!
“I find it really hard to believe that we are really in this bad of shape.”
Most of us aren’t, but many are anticipating bad times. I suspect a lot of spam is being purchased for later use.
I believe it to be a prudent precaution. If things don’t go that far south you can always use it later.
Me neither, I love it.
My mom used to put cloves in it and bake it like a ham then glaze it with honey. One can for four people along with fried potatoes and onions.
This is too funny...I just made an omelet with Spam for breakfast. I will admit, I have a loyalty to the product most others wouldn’t, since Hormel employs family members of mine.
Of course Obama will react to this news by massively scaling back the inauguration celebrations. After all, it’s obscene for the President and his entourage to be chowing down on buckets of caviar whilst the rest of us are eating Spam.
</sarcasm>
My mom did the same...we loved it. I guess we didn’t know any better.....LOL
In our household Spam is camp food. Cooked on a woodfire it’s actually fairly good. At home, I want to eat pig, I’ll stick with my own smoked pork, an upscale ham, or a wonderful French recipe for pork chops in a mustard cream sauce.
“I loved it as a kid and still like it now. Spam and eggs ymmm.”
Spam and baked beans on Saturday nights growing up and Spam and canned potatoes on the boat; God forgive me, but 50 years later I still love the stuff and just 2 months ago She Who Must Be Obeyed finally relented, after 32 years of marriage, and bought some for me. She still won’t eat it but it puts a smile on my face!
Spam is one of the cheapest canned meats. There are pretty decent cheap canned hams also.
Corned beef hash is another good one along with, of course, tuna and canned chicken.
We need to put up stores ourselves and encourage others to do it.
Over 100,000 truckers are off the road this year. A year ago, the industry was SHORT @ 8,000 truckers. Since the fuel crunch, 1,000 trucking companies have closed. Others have laid off thousands of drivers and made solo drivers team up.
Thousands of O/O's have had to park their rigs.
It's a major crisis on the brink of MAJOR crisis. WAshington and the media ignores the vital trucking industry while putting it's energy into deciding how many billions of our dollars to hand Detroit.
Detroit, with it's mega-billionaire CEO's flying around in their private jets, have caused their own problems due to miserable business practices. I suspicion they didn't worry because they own enough politicians to bail them out, as they have in the past.
Fact is, if many fewer new model cars rolled off the lines, we would still have transportation even if, oh horror, we had to drive the same car a few years.
However, if the trucks stop rolling, it will take just 2 days for the grocery store shelves to empty - and a few more days for most other stores to suffer the same.
We have a disastrous crisis looming - and no one gives a rip.
If the trucks stop rolling, New Orleans after Katrina will be played out across the country.
Gotta run...wanna get to the store before they run out of Spam.
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