Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo

A Spam Cook-off held two weeks ago in Fremont, Neb., showcased dozens of dishes utilizing the pork/ham-based product. Rick Pinne of Lawrence participated in the event, creating a Yucatan Spam dish.

Rick Pinne grew up on Spam. “I liked it,” he says. “A lot of people made fun of it, but it always tasted good to us.”

Around college time, he and friends realized the canned meat product had a special, almost medicinal quality to it.

“It worked as a great pre-hangover food,” Pinne says. “At 2 o’clock in the morning, you’d fry up some eggs and Spam.”

Pinne is a lifelong fan of Spam, which is the butt of many jokes, the subject of a Monty Python comedy troupe sketch and has a computer term for junk e-mail named for it.

But even with his appreciation for canned ham, Pinne was able to take his admiration to a new level two weekends ago. He drove to Fremont, Neb., to participate in that community’s Spam cook-off.

Pinne, a 61-year-old retiree, made Yucatan Spam, a Latin dish that typically is made with pork shoulder. But Pinne substituted Spam – which Hormel Foods says is made of ham, sugar, salt and potato starch – for the pork shoulder. Other ingredients included oregano, all-spice, ground annato seed, garlic and orange juice soured with lime and lemon juice. The pork is wrapped in Swiss chard leaf.

“As a matter of fact, I can’t tell the difference between the Spam version of it and the original,” Pinne says. “I thought it tasted very good. But the Nebraska judges weren’t ready for that.”

Cooking tips

Pinne, who drove to Nebraska with three friends from Lawrence, says many of the 20 finalists at the Spam cook-off made pretty boring dishes. The winner was far from gourmet – it was a Spam corn dog.

Others included a Spam Reuben sandwich and potato latkes with Spam.

Pinne usually just fries it like a piece of bacon, or fries it with potatoes or cheese. (Hormel no longer makes Spam with cheese already in it).

The only challenge to cooking it, he says, is that it’s already cooked and has high salt content.

“You can’t cook it very long without turning it into something not very edible,” Pinne says.

So if you’re cooking Spam in a more complicated dish, you have to pair it with other ingredients that cook quickly.

Cultural phenomenon

Fremont, incidentally, is home to a Hormel Spam plant, though Austin, Minn., considers itself home to Spam and bills itself Spamtown USA.

Cheryl Corey, executive director of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, says the town’s Spam Museum has generated nearly 400,000 visitors in its first four years. That’s a testament, she says, to how much Spam has seeped into popular culture.

“We poke lighthearted fun at ourselves,” Corey says. “We have Spambassadors as tour guides in the museum, serve Spamples in the museum and have a nationally known singing group here called the Spamettes. Why not make it fun?”

Corey loves Spam, and not just because she’s paid to help promote it. She likes open-face sandwiches, with ground Spam, cream of mushroom soup, onion and cheese. She also likes grilled turkey Spam (another variety) on a bun with tomato.

But she’s also aware people turn up their noses – and sometimes plug them – at Spam.

“We embrace what we have,” Corey says.

Hormel officials, incidentally, declined interview requests to talk about their Spam.

But Pinne has no problem talking about it. He dismisses anyone who wants to make fun of Spam.

“I put it down to ignorance,” he says. “They’ve either never had it or can’t imagine what it’s like. It’s just a pork product – I’m sure Emeril likes it.”