70 Spamtastic years

If Hawaiians could change the food pyramid, they would include rice in the fruits and vegetable tier. They love their rice so much here they devote almost an entire aisle of it in the grocery store. If you looked at Noah's school lunch menu, most days they have rice for lunch and even for breakfast. Back in Idaho, if they were serving chicken nuggets, it would come with something like fries or tater tots. Not here. Nope, you rarely see potatoes on the school lunch menu. Anywhere you'd think "potatoes", insert "rice" instead.

Tom was a big rice eater when I met him so at least I ate rice before moving here. Marty and Heather (the couple that moved here from Kansas, he's Tom's right-hand man) weren't rice eaters, but they delved right into the custom and bought a rice cooker. I cook it the 'ole fashion way- in a pot.

They like it so much here they put it with about anything. It's kind of funny, but since we've been here we've been to a few outdoor activities and they always have a booth that sells chili & rice -- a big Styrofoam bowl of chili with rice on the bottom. They also have what's call Spam Musubi (moo-soo-bee), which consists of a slice of fried Spam pressed on a small block of rice and wrapped in a strip of nori (seaweed). You can even buy Spam Musubi in the 7-Elevens throughout the state.

Mainlanders cringe and laugh at the mere mention of the word Spam. Hawaiians take it quite seriously. After all, Hawaii has the highest consumption of Spam per capita than any other state. They love the stuff. They love it so much that in 2002, McDonald's started test-marketing Spam on it's breakfast menu. They started serving an egg, rice (see!) and Spam meal. Tom and I laughed once when we saw a big banner hanging from a McDonald's window promoting a Spam sandwich for breakfast.

Hawaiians don't understand why mainlanders don't like Spam. Maybe it's because mainlanders associate Spam as a substitute for bologna (equally gellous meatious food). Hawaiians never eat Spam cold. They prefer it fried.

Earlier this month one of the daily newspapers ran an article titled "70 Spamtastic Years". Not only do they love eating it here, they like writing about it! I read the article and found out that there is a man who lives in Alabama who loves Spam. He loves it so much that he eats it at least three times a week, has made a Christmas tree out of Spam cans, and even has a Spam Halloween costume. I'm surprised there wasn't an outcry by Hawaiians. What? He doesn't live in Hawaii?