Word: spam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Toast bagel to desired doneness. Spread cream cheese on both slices and set aside. Heat a small skillet over high heat. Once heated, place Spam in skillet and sear on both sides until browned and slightly caramelized. Place Spam on top of bagel and top with sliced cheese. In the same skillet on medium heat, fry the egg until over medium, or until yolk is slightly runny. Place egg on top of cheese, top with tomato and other bagel slice. Enjoy...
...turns out that a lot of the chefs had already cooked Spam. Rick Moonen, the brilliant seafoodie in Las Vegas, once made some exhausted mountain-biking friends Spam and eggs procured at a produce-unfriendly general store in the middle of the Catskills. "They say it was one of the best meals of their life," he says. Likewise, Michael Fiorello of Chicago's Mercat a la Planxa was with a girlfriend a couple of years ago in an area without an open grocery store, so after a trip to CVS, he worked up a pizza with canned pineapples, canned corn...
Those once crucial food-shopping decisions between local and organic became a lot less important when the recession rolled in. Sales of Spam, which comes in neither of those varieties, haven't been this big since World War II, when soldiers overseas were sent vacuum-sealed cans of cooked pork shoulder, ham, water, sugar, salt, sodium nitrite (to maintain the porcine color) and potato starch (to maintain the cat-food-like consistency...
...grew up in the 1970s, and even though my suburban menu included Velveeta, Saucy Susan and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, we did not eat Spam. So when I tried it in Hawaii--by far the biggest Spam-eating state, thanks to an influx of World War II soldiers, poverty and a palate used to poi--I was surprised that it wasn't bad. Kind of smoky and not at all gelatinous. With many of the top restaurants hurting, I figured I'd ask some of the country's best chefs what kind of cheap dishes they could make with the stuff...
Brandon Boudet of Dominick's in Los Angeles wasn't so sure. A Spam virgin, he blanched a bit when it plonked out of the can, all pink like a newborn mole rat. After bravely sautéing some little squares of Spam--for Spamghetti carbonara--he tested one and was surprised. It was pleasantly hamlike and not as salty as he had expected. And it was eerily airy. He was so confused, he grabbed the can and scanned the ingredients. It was the potato starch. That's what holds the shape but kind of melts in your mouth...