Hawaii's Spam Cookbook

For Breakfast I have Spam. For Lunch, Spam, and for Dinner, Spam. This cookbook comes in real handy for my voracious appetite for Spam.

On a per capita basis, Hawaii consumes more than three and a half times more Spam annually than any other state (that's four million cans a year, all told.) The author claims, and makes a good case that Spam is "Hawaii's soul food." After World War Two when Spam became the brunt of derogatory jokes in most of the world, Hawaiians continued their Spam consumption at a voracious rate. In the process they got more and more imaginative in the preparations. I travel to Hawaii on business quite a bit, and can vouch for the popularity of Spam: even the Local McDonald's has a Spam breakfast. I just had it last week, in fact: it consists of two pieces of fried Spam, scrambled eggs, and two scoops of rice. Try finding that on the mainland. While I admit to having the McSpam breakfast as a novelty, Hawaiians take their Spam very seriously, and this book showcases some extremely imaginative methods of preparing Spam. It has "Spam and Mushroom Rolls," "Spam Musubi," "Kalua Spam," "Spam Won Ton," "Spam Chowder," "Spam Fu Young," "Spam and Zucchini Omelet," and the unpleasant sounding "Basic Spam-Fishcake Pupu Mix," among many other recipes. To say that there is a wide variety of Spam recipes here is quite an understatement, but there's much more than just Spam here. In a continuing homage to the Hawaiian love of canned and potted meat food products, there are also recipes for sardines, corned beef, and Vienna sausages, all of which are wildly popular on the islands. Enjoy the "Sardines and Warabi [Fern Shoots]," "Mabel's Kim Chee Sardines" (which is a gastronomic line in the sand I refuse to cross), "Sardine and Tofu Souffle," "Puukolii Pork 'n Beans," "Vienna Sausage Pupus," "and something named simply "Pokey-Pokey" (Filipino scrambled eggs complete with Vienna sausage, eggplant, and garlic.) The book contains many basic, yet amusing, illustrations, and a glossary of terms germane to Hawaiian Spam cookery, which helps the neophyte Spam chef substantially. If you want a single book on cooking Spam Hawaiian style, this is the best volume you will ever find. I'm not saying that I would eat everything in this book, but I am saying that this is the book I recommend above all others in the quest for preparing authentic Hawaiian Spam dishes! 'Ai iho!

When I first moved away from Hawaii in 1995, my grandmother gave me this book to take along with me to Japan. In Japan, the SPAM there still has the "key" to open the cans. Anyway, I used several of the recipes such as: "SPAM MUSUBI", "Korean Style SPAM", and "Sato Shoyu SPAM" and introduced them to my Japanese colleagues who immediately fell in love with SPAM. I told my Japanese colleagues to visit 7-11 in Hawaii to see that SPAM MUSUBI is even sold there!! Now I live in Indiana where SPAM is well, not as popular as it is back in Hawaii. I have brought SPAM MUSUBI to work where my new colleagues have frowned in disbelievement, but after they tried it, they did not have a bad thing to say about this ingenious SPAM creation. Ms. Kondo Corum's book is well written and provides a glossary of unfamiliar terms for the non-Hawaii person. Besides SPAM, she also covers some other local island favorites such as: vienna sausages, corned beef, and sardines. The recipes and instructions are easy to read and the meals are easy to prepare. The artwork adds to the appeal of the recipes. If you love SPAM and would like to get recipes that you would normally not find here in the 48 states, this is your book!

All of the dishes are easy to prepare as well as tasty. Kids especially love the main courses and appetizers. Spam is practically a staple diet of the locals in Hawaii, and you will find "spam musubi", soyu spam, etc. at many picnics and beach outings. Unbelievably, there are also very elegant dinners in this book, that you would not even think could be made with Spam!