Fried with brown sugar and worcestershire sauce

If you have never had it properly served, you might not appreciate Spam.

When you grow up whitebread in the South, you learn to love potted meat, vienna (pronounced vyeener) sausages, and, the jewel of spiced roots and snoots, Spam.

Mom coated it with brown sugar and worcestershire sauce and pan-fried it. Mmmmmmm.

Growing up whitebread means you were middle class, white, didn’t know anybody that wasn’t white, ate only white bread, were Protestant but didn’t know what that word meant, didn’t meet anyone Catholic or Jewish until at least college, and assumed the whole world was just like you. Safe, naïve, and happy.

I knew things were going wrong when mom brought home something called Roman Meal bread. Yikes. Dry, couldn’t make good doughballs out of it, tasted like a cowchip, but it was supposed to be “good for us”. Especially in Spam sandwiches.

I wonder about the good people at Hormel. They spent years building a nice brand that people loved. Then, their name is used to mean, well, shit. The stuff you don’t want. The stuff that might be dangerous. Did they sue somebody for disparaging their good name?

And why call it spam? Why not more despicable things? Like Sanka. Brussel sprouts. Corrective shoes. Designated hitter. Carrot Top.

And who the heck are these people that keep sending it? And how do I get a job making up those names? Why, in my inbox right now I have messages from Agamemnon Beck, Juanita Cherry (no I don’t need one), and Christy Dumas (Christy, you missed the b in your last name).

Since the post office is about to go broke, maybe they could learn something from email. Like have a “Barry Bonds” filter. I would pay them extra for them not to deliver one more Valpak, Welcome Wagon, Penny Saver or any other crap that is clogging up my mailbox, trash can and the landfills.

And where the heck is Al Gore on this? Al, this would make an excellent PowerPoint presentation. Both sides of the aisle would be with you on this one. And you could actually earn that Nobel Peace prize. Think of the joy and harmony you would bring to our lives if all that “Barry Bonds” never was allowed to reach us.