Bearcastle Blog » Spam Cake

Spam Cake

Second only, in the realm of strange food fascinations, to an unnatural interest in congealed salads is my fixation on Spam, the Hormel canned-meat product. I still have hanging, right here where I can see it, a Spam Calendar from 2004, where each month features a recipe illustrated by an appetizing, full-color picture. Yumm. Someone asked me the other day why I still had it up — as though to show the current days of the week might be the only use for a calendar! — and I said it was for "inspiration".

A couple of weeks back we kicked off the pot-luck season around here with a pool party, and I took my latest find: Spam and French-Fry Casserole. I was hoping for a spectacular success to match my all time favorite "8-Can Casserole", and next favorite "McGill Masterpiece" (recipes to follow, some day), but it disappointed me a little bit by not exhibiting the hoped-for burst of flavor in each bite that I'd hoped for. The search goes on.

At any rate, I was having a bit of an e-mail exchange with a fellow lover of weird food, and happened to be reminded about recent intelligence received concerning a recipe for a "spam cake". This is one I can't wait to serve, just for the opportunity to reveal its secret ingredient:

There are zillions of SPAM concoctions on the internet – everything from Rack of Spam to Spammus to Spam soup. But all-be-darned if I couldn't find one for SPAM cake. So I called the SPAM Museum, located at 1937 SPAM Boulevard in Austin, Minnesota and asked them. The lady said I'll have to call you back. Twenty minutes later the phone rang and she said "the recipe for SPAM cake is very simple. Follow the directions for any white, spice, yellow or devil's food cake mix, but substitute grated SPAM for the oil." *

Tra la!
———-
*Charles Pheonix, "Slide of the Week: Spam Cake Birthday Party Luncheon, Alcoa Aluminum Company, LA, 1955", God Bless Americana, 30 June 2005.

Posted on September 30, 2005 at 18.03 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Curious Stuff, Food Stuff

4 Responses

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Saturday, 1 October 2005 at 00.42
    Permalink

    Spam cake — now that's a new one to me. Never imagined such a thing.

    Here's a darned good sandwich of the type places like Red Robin charge most of $10 for.

    Grill a frozen breaded chicken patty (from Foster Farms, about the size and shape of a one-third-pound hamburger patty) and a slice or two of Spam.

    Slather a large, warmed or grilled hamburger bun with a liberal amount of mayonnaise. Place chicken on bottom bun half.

    Option A: Slather top of chicken with liberal amount of Gulden's mustard.

    Place spam atop chicken.

    Throw on a slice of mozarella.

    Top with upper half of bun, press firmly, so still-hot Spam and chicken partially melts the cheese.

    Or . . .

    Option B: (best not combined with mustard of option A) Toss on top of chicken-Spam base a ring or two of canned pineapple, preferably not soaking wet.

    Add chunk of lettuce, if desired.

    Top with upper half of bun.

    Very tasty and very filling.

  2. Written by jns
    on Saturday, 1 October 2005 at 21.57
    Permalink

    Mmmm. Both sound too good for words, but I think, in the first instance, that I'd probably try the version with the pineapple-ring. Sure, I love pineapple, and it goes nicely with Spam, but you just know that the sandwich would have to be called something like "Hawaiian Spam-Chicken Sandwich" and then we'd be off on that whole retro-Tiki thing, which is such fun!

  3. Written by Bearcastle Blog
    on Thursday, 6 October 2005 at 20.24
    Permalink

    Spam Cake II

    Just a few days ago, I posted a short piece about a recipe for "Spam Cake" that came my way, and mentioned my morbid fascination for Spam — second only to my love of Jell-O and "congealed salads". Of course, we knew it wasn't likely to stop there…

  4. Written by Bill Morrison
    on Friday, 4 July 2008 at 11.03
    Permalink

    Well, I just heard an item on NPR on Spam sushi, which is apparently a favourite in Hawaii. (More Spam is consumed, per capita, in Hawaii than anywhere else, apparently.) The recipe includes the usual rice, wasabe sauce, seaweed, and the two great Hawaiian favourites, Spam and mayonnaise. It's available at http://www.npr.org.

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