Saturday, July 30, 2011

SPAM - Dinner with Friends

(Ellendale, MN) Hi 88 Lo 70 --  Have I mentioned lately that this lifestyle is great? I thought I'd  mention it in case I haven't said anything lately. We are having so much fun checking things out in our travels.  I doubt if we'd go to the SPAM Museum if we were on  a vacation, maybe if it was on the way to a destination.  The museum is about 40 minutes from our park in Austin, MN, the home of Hormel Foods.  On the way we stopped in to see Linda at JoAnn Fabrics in Austin.  She's the Store Manager and just recently opened up this new store. 


The SPAM museum is just a couple miles from the store and it's a self guided tour with a movie telling about the history of SPAM. Out front is this interesting statue.


































The first thing you see when you walk in is this wall display of 3,390 cans of SPAM. Impressive! 


























SPAM first came on the market in 1937. During WWII it was a staple with the military, and to this day if needed quickly they can supply the military with rations. The first thing that's mentioned is what is in SPAM. You hear all kinds of things but there's only a few ingredients.  Ham (shoulder mainly), salt, flavorings, preservatives, and water. It has a very long shelf life because it's packed in a vacuum can.  To learn more of what is in SPAM here's the link. 




























I didn't know there were so many kinds of SPAM. Two new ones that are only shipped overseas for now are Garlic SPAM and Black Pepper SPAM. There's also a lot of recipes using SPAM. Hawaii consumes the most SPAM, and it's considered a delicacy over there. 



























Toward the end of the tour we watched a recording of the Monty Python skit about SPAM from their TV show in the early 70's. It was a hoot!  "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...." All in all it was a fairly entertaining way to spend part of an afternoon. It's probably not something we would take the time to see if we were on a one-week vacation, but with the time we have available now, it was worth it. 


We went to lunch at Culver's then to Walmart and on home.  Linda and Chuck invited us to join them for dinner, along with their daughter Tena and her family. We went to Plaza Marena, a Mexican restaurant in Albert Lea. The food and fellowship were both excellent!


L to R, Jonah, Tyler, Addison, Ethan, Chuck, Tena, Dee and Jim

























After a leisurely time of good conversation we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Thank you very much for the dinner tonight Chuck and Linda. 


PS: can't figure out why the space are big, maybe it's blogger. 

9 comments:

Mike and Terri said...

I love SPAM... straight from the can on bread with mustard, fried SPAM on bread with spicey mustard, SPAM "burgers" with fried onions... now I'm hungry but it's too late now for SPAM, maybe tomorrow. Terri doesn't like SPAM.

Margie and Roger said...

Glad you stopped at the SPAM museum, I had forgotten about that. It was really neat - I still have a can of it from our trip.

squawmama said...

SPAM ∞ we love it too!!! We went to Guam a long time ago when my daughter was in the Navy. They eat spam every which way there and it was all very good. I even bought a spam cookbook! LOL I put this on my places to stop if we are near there... Thanks GREAT post!

Along the Way with JnK said...

Jerry loves it...I can't stand the smell of it, so we hardly ever have it in the house.

We talked about going to the museum, but instead it was nice seeing it through your blog. Sounded like fun!

Jim and Sandie said...

I've never had Spam. May have to give it a try. And I so agree with you about this lifestyle. On vacation, probably not a stop. But on life, definitely a place we'd stop. Thanks for the tour.

owensontheroad said...

Too funny! SPAM isn't too bad..surprised you didn't have a SPAM lunch :)

Phyllis said...

Yuk! I can't stomach SPAM. However, Leonard likes it. Years ago we were visiting his mother in Louisiana, driving back to NJ. She gave us a can of SPAM and loaf of white bread for a meal on the road. The meal would have been complete had we had some Velveeta and TANG to wash it down!

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