-- ALL ABOUT SPAM --

The name "Spam" came from a contest ran by the George A. Hormel company,
when they discovered the secret of eternal shelf life in 1937. The winning
name was a contraction of "spiced ham" (which is odd since there isn't any
spices in it anyways). Spam is a joke food, but someone out there is eating
it. Over 100 million cans of it are created each year. That means that at 
each second, 3 cans of Spam are being opened. 

Ingredients: Chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added and salt, water,
sugar, sodium nitrate. There isn't really much scary meat in it, such as
the stories about pig snouts and such, even though meat used for canning
contains adjacent fat and connective tissues that need not be described on
the label, however. Presence of tendons in canned meat is considered
permissible if the amount is under 10% in contents; the reason being that
finely ground tendons are believed to be digestible in the presence of other
proteins. For every 100 pounds of this meat, you need about 3 1/2 pounds of
salt, a pound of sugar, and about an ounce of sodium nitrate. Nitrate is what
gives Spam it's eerie pink--without it, Spam would fade to a drab meat-loaf
gray. 

The consistency of Spam is not quite fleshlike, being too rubbery for that,
and is constructed on the principle of concrete. Coarse chunks of meat are 
held together by a pate of finely ground meat. Approximately 3/4 of the meat
is ground coarsely (through a three-eighths-inch plate of the grinder), the 
remaining quarter finely (one-eighth-inch plate). Grinding, mixing and
curing must be done in a chilled factory (34 degrees Fahrenheit) to minimize
bacterial growth. Mix the 2 grades of meat with the salt, sugar, and sodium
nitrate in a vacuum mixer set to a 27-inch vacuum, for 5 minutes. Release
vacuum and let the mixture cure overnight, maintaining refrigeration. The
next day, mix in the vacuum mixer for about 10 minutes again. The chilled
meat is then ready for canning.

Though the canning plant doesn't have to be refrigerated, the meat must not
warm more than a few degrees (to no more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit) in
transit. Spray the inner surfaces of the cans with oil for easy removal,
then pack with meat mixtuer and seal under a 27-inch vacuum. Spam is still
raw when canned. Cooking and sterilization take place in the sealed can.
The time required to sterilize depends on the size and shape of the can. The
classic 3 7/8" x 3 1/4" x 2 1/8" oblong can takes about 70 minutes in an
oven set to 230 degrees Fahrenheit. The can's sturdy design and the internal
vacuum prevent explosion.

After that, it's shipped off for you to eat. You don't even have to heat it.
The sterilization kills any trichinosis organisms. Spam is the pork to have
when you're having it tepid.

Spam age: Hormel's dating code is a 5-digit number on the bottom of the can,
something like F04173, where F encodes the processing plant. The first 2
digits represent the month (04 for April), the next two are the day (17 is
the 17th), and the last is the year (3 means it's 1993 unless it's a really
old can). There is a record of canned meat (not Spam, obviously) remaining 
edible for 114 years. However, a Hormel brochure suggests using all canned
foods within 2 years. Says Hormel, "It is important to keep in mind that all
foods are substances which are derived from living matter. All living things
have life spans that are characteristic of the species." Even Spam.

-- kindof taken from Biggest Secrets, by William Poundstone

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 Jen Frickell                   Moo!   ( x x )       jen@stella.colorado.edu
 frickell@colorado.edu                  \   /           System Administrator
 Computing and Networking Systems       (o o)    Geology Dept (303) 492-7113
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