SPAM! It’s good sometimes! Sort of. Photos: Youtube//Screenshot
Gordon Ramsay is a good cook. I don’t know that from experience, but I assume that he probably is, given his stature in the food world. He’s generally regarded as a guy who cooks European dishes, and SPAM is decidedly not European. All the same, Ramsay headed to the Big Island to make a staple: a SPAM sandwich.
A few months ago, at the beginning of what has been the longest, rainiest stretch of months I can remember on Vancouver Island, I began thinking about Hawaii. Hawaii, with its waves and swaying palms and food trucks with garlic shrimp and lilikoi and roosters crowing. Hawaii, with its leis and that perfectly Hawaiian sand. Hawaii, with perhaps most importantly, its SPAM dishes. I went to the store and bought SPAM, rice, seaweed wraps, and a few other things in an attempt to make SPAM musubi that was only partially successful. I think it’s because I ate it in my living room with pouring rain battering the windows and a sun that went down at 4:30 p.m. It likely would have been better if I ate it from a plastic container in the sand somewhere, watching the sun drop into the ocean, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. It was a reminder, though, that if you can get past what SPAM is made of (or isn’t made of), it’s actually pretty delicious.
SPAM has been around for a while, and Gordon Ramsay’s mother fed it to him as a child. “My mum served all of us SPAM, egg, chips, and beans,” he said. “It was a big staple.” It might be easy to wonder why Ramsay didn’t choose to make something with something like axis deer or maybe a fish that Kimi Werner shot, but at this point, SPAM is so synonymous with Hawaiian food that it actually makes a lot of sense.
Gordon Ramsay wouldn’t be doing his reputation justice if he just slapped a slice of SPAM on some bread and called it a day. Instead, he elevated it. Throw in a few slices of pineapple, some miso mayonnaise, and a few other things, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a sandwich that might just take you back to Hawaii… but only in your mouth.
