THE TROUBLE WITH SPAM

Could anything be more controversial than Spam, and I do mean the meat kind, not just the annoying stuff that accumulates in your inbox? Well, I thought lots could be more subject to horror and ire. I have been warned (a little unnecessarily) about the horrible additives

in the ubiquitous canned meat for which there is an actual local Hawaii cookbook--I have a copy and I know the author. I know it's not good for me, and I really consume little (although I have a sudden craving for a Spam musubi, a snack also loved by President Obama, thus proving he was born in Hawaii).

But if anything relegates the Spam cans to the disaster shelf (which now has a new meaning), it may be a story cited by one of my blog-o-pals. I flatter myself to think that my previous Defense of Spam was the reason for his posting of this article. In such a way, I actually may have helped spread information about something very ugly going on in the Spam factory. (Although I'm sceptical about the idea of Hormel pig brain slurry being shipped to Asia for use as a stir-fry thickener; the stir-fry dishes I ate in China were rarely "thickened" with anything. Not that I wouldn't put it above the Chinese...perhaps pig-brain gravy is a traditional delicacy. And apparently it is in the American South.)

It's hard to do anything without participating in some kind of hidden horror...open a can of Spam and condemn some poor illegal worker to auto-immune dysfunction...drive your car and melt the icecap...buy cheap coffee and ruin the rainforest...every day another mea culpa. This is the meaning of original sin.

But every day, another chance to start over.