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SPAM: A Global History
The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, a conflict that solidified SPAM’s place in global food culture. Created by Hormel Foods in 1937 to utilize surplus pork shoulder during the Great Depression, SPAM became an essential resource during the Second World War, and helped shape perceptions of American culture. This book explores SPAM’s complex history, from its inception to its resurgence during the 2020–23 pandemic, highlighting its enduring legacy in places like Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Okinawa and South Korea. It demonstrates how SPAM, a long-lasting and valuable protein, played a crucial role during wartime and continues to influence dietary practices worldwide.
- GenresFood and Drink
160 pages, Hardcover
Published August 12, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 10, 2026
Interesting and quick read.
January 13, 2025
From relief food in wars, disasters and pandemics to Monty Python's spamalot, spam has a much more interesting, funny and curious history than you would imagine.
With only 6 ingredients, the recipe hasn’t changed in over 80 years, but they’ve added flavours for different markets around the world: hot and spicy, teriyaki, cheese, chorizo, turkey, tocino etc.
It has travelled around the world and found homes in Guam, Hawaii, South-Korea, japan and 48 other countries and specifically one of them - The Philippines, was the most interesting to me.
As a norwegian-filipino growing up in Norway, I had an innate craving for spam, but the country I grew up in didn’t support this. It was like contraband whenever someone was going to a country that had spam “can you bring me a tin, I’ll pay you!”
The associations that spam has managed to create because of its spread through relief feels like a branch of generational trauma. Filipinos were starving - Americans gave them spam - descendants of Filipinos now love spam. Even though, neither my mother, myself or my daughter were alive during these wars, we still see it as comfort food.
Filled with interesting fun facts, photos and even recipes, this is a book for anyone.
Love spam - lets go!,
never heard of it? - here’s a great introduction,
hate it? - You’ll definitely find some reasons to still admire this humble tin of pre-cooked mystery meat.
With only 6 ingredients, the recipe hasn’t changed in over 80 years, but they’ve added flavours for different markets around the world: hot and spicy, teriyaki, cheese, chorizo, turkey, tocino etc.
It has travelled around the world and found homes in Guam, Hawaii, South-Korea, japan and 48 other countries and specifically one of them - The Philippines, was the most interesting to me.
As a norwegian-filipino growing up in Norway, I had an innate craving for spam, but the country I grew up in didn’t support this. It was like contraband whenever someone was going to a country that had spam “can you bring me a tin, I’ll pay you!”
The associations that spam has managed to create because of its spread through relief feels like a branch of generational trauma. Filipinos were starving - Americans gave them spam - descendants of Filipinos now love spam. Even though, neither my mother, myself or my daughter were alive during these wars, we still see it as comfort food.
Filled with interesting fun facts, photos and even recipes, this is a book for anyone.
Love spam - lets go!,
never heard of it? - here’s a great introduction,
hate it? - You’ll definitely find some reasons to still admire this humble tin of pre-cooked mystery meat.
February 3, 2026
Wow!!! What an incredible gem of a book. I found it at a local cookbook store and bought it on a whim and feel totally changed by reading this. I had NO IDEA the wide reaching impact of Spam especially during WWII and outside of the United States. Spam feels like something you know of in the background and probably have some feelings about but this book gave me a total behind the scenes view through the global history lens and I’ll never look at these little cans the same way again. It delivers clear prose, thoughtful chapter organization, and a powerful and impactful length of 112 pages (with recipes and sources after). Did I mention I’m vegetarian?? I know I will be talking about this book to everyone for awhile, HIGHLY recommend.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews