I think that what I dislike most about spam is its name. You see, I’m quite fond of real SPAM, that uncertain food product made possible by the Depression and brought to the forefront of the world’s food stage by the second World War.

Why on earth am I fond of SPAM (™) or its bastard cousin, TREET (also ™)? I have no idea whatsoever. I just like the stuff. I don’t get, really, why people are so freaked out by SPAM. SPAM does not bother anyone. It can’t, for Christ’s sake, it’s inanimate and lives in little tins surrounded by viscous oog. It couldn’t bother anyone if it wanted to. SPAM just sits there being salty and tasty and lets everyone insult it. (TREET, I’m sure, has the same problem, but it’s somewhat protected by relative product obscurity.)

I think that most people are bothered by the very name SPAM. It just doesn’t sound like something that you’re supposed to actually eat. Having done my spomework, I know that the name was the result of a contest. It stands for SPiced hAM. Most people do not recognize this, however, and shy away from something with a somewhat ambiguous name that comes in a little tin surrounded by viscous oog. Names mean a lot to the American public. While the English are quite happy to devour their blood pudding (which does have the advantage of being honest about its origins), Americans are freaked out by things like SPAM and another of my favorites, scrapple.

Scrapple grosses people out because it’s called scrapple. All of the people who think that scrapple is omiGAWD EEEEWWWW!!! probably love Big Macs, which have considerably more nebulous ingredients. These same people will invariably eat sausage quite happily (not that “sausage” is a particularly appealing name either). Scrapple IS sausage, but it has a lot of cornmeal thrown into the mix to stretch the meat out a bit further. It is, after all, the invention of thrifty Pennsylvania Germans.

SPAM, on the other hand, is a completely corporate product — and it has a name that doesn’t exactly give its potential consumers much insight as to its consistency. But then, hot dogs have the same problem. One can only hope that they don’t actually include dog — but nobody seems to mind “hot dogs.” Neither does anybody mind the designations “frankfurter” or “wiener.” Do keep in mind that real Frankfurter-wurst and Wiener-wurst don’t much resemble American hot dogs. Please also note that it’s pronounced “veener,” and it’s not spelled “weiner,” which is a nonexistent word in German and, if it did exist, would be pronounced Vine-er.

So why is SPAM gross? Hot dogs are fine. Baloney is fine. (And I’m fine with calling it baloney, since it doesn’t really resemble the real food from Bologna, anyway.) But SPAM is gross and scrapple is gross.

It’s all in the name, methinks — that, and in the homogenization of American taste that has winnowed out a lot of the old ethnic food tendencies brought over from Europe, particularly those involving any form of thrift.

Perhaps modern Americans need to be grossed out by SPAM because they don’t know enough about truly gross food. You think SPAM is gross? Try head cheese. That’s really gross — and, for those not sufficiently deductive, made from pig heads. Whole pig heads. Or souse, which is basically SPAM that wasn’t left in the blender long enough, and still has recognizably porcine parts embedded in its gelatinous nastiness.

Perhaps beyond the name issue that damns SPAM to food hell is the ever-fickle nature of fashion. SPAM was born of economic despair and came to fruition in wartime, so even if it had a cool name people would associate it with unpleasantness. Fashion has smiled upon other nastiness, though, and sometimes renders style from entrails.

Note, if you will, sushi. I don’t really have anything against Japanese culture, I simply find it completely unfathomable. Hey, I’m sure that very few Japanese people would understand my affinity for pierogi, and I’m OK with that. Why, though, am I supposed to like sushi? This is fucking raw fish we’re talking about here. Fish is supposed to be cooked. If no one can figure this out I have about four hundred and seventy three recipes for various tasty seagoing things. SPAM is gross, but raw fish and seaweed is delicious? Give me a break, people. I have long cherished a belief that no one in the US actually likes sushi, but everyone pretends to love it and chokes it down — at risk of numerous diseases resultant from the consumption of raw fish — because, well, it’s really cool.