I kinda don’t understand SPAM.

I think when I was little back home my mom used to get it – so I’ve eaten it.  But not really in years that I remember.

We had to stop at the grocery store last night to pick up a few things before Craig went camping this morning.  Outside our grocery store they sometimes put some racks out with clearance stuff.  Sometimes I glance through to see if there is anything interesting – like irregular Double Stuffed Oreos.  I’ll buy ALLLL of those!!

Anyway – I see these single serving pouches of SPAM. SPAM has always been a curious thing to me.  I pick one up to see that it says “Roasted Turkey”.  Ohhhkkaaayyyyy….is it SPAM or is it Turkey?!  I’m SOO confused.

I ask Craig “What is this?”

“It’s SPAM.”

Enlightening.

And with that golden nugget of information he’s off for the door.

So I finally find the ingredients crammed on the front, going down the side of the packet, about 1/2 of an inch wide.

First, there’s turkey.  Oh – well look – I guess it’s really turkey, and not just some weird meat composite that school cafeteria ladies invented to make us THINK the secret ingredient was some kind of meat.  (As was previously thought of SPAM in my head.)

Second ingredient?  Turkey flavoring.

Ummmm……If it’s made of turkey, why does it need turkey flavoring??  What am I missing here?

Now I’m hurrying after Craig, SPAM packet in hand, asking the obvious question.  (See above if you got lost a little.)

It would appear my husband is not a SPAM expert, so I’m left frustrated in my quest for the truth about this odd little part of the American (especially Hawaian) culture.

I continue reading the ingredients, waiting for “it” to jump out at me.  You know – IT.  That ingredient that makes me go “Ohhhhhh – THAT’S what’s in SPAM”, but then makes my nose wrinkle at the thought that people actually eat it.  Kinda like when you come across the cow tongue in the butcher’s area.

Salt.  Ok – nothing big there.

Salt Flavoring.

I’m now looking at the SPAM packet as if it could speak and just told me “Boogers fly from empty balloons.”  (Really – what kind of face would you make if a packet of SPAM said that to you?!)  There ya go – that’s the face.

I’m thinking this company that makes SPAM, might not understand what ingredients do.  Turkey ALREADY tastes like turkey, and salt already tastes like salt – you see.  So there’s no need to flavor these things with…..well – themselves.

At this point I decided that the mystery that is SPAM was a little different that I had originally thought.  And while I still don’t quite get SPAM, my brain wasn’t prepared for the type of trickery it was going up against.

I put the packet down by the bananas and that was that.  Hopefully the SPAM doesn’t get inside the banana’s head and tell them they need banana flavoring.  That would just be wrong.