History of Spam (yummy) (barf)
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER. Today's Honorary Subscriber is George A. Hormel (1860-1946), the man who brought us Spam. No, not junk mail -- Spam with a capital S, Spam the food. During the Great Depression, Hormel's company sold 1.5-pound cans of beef stew for only 15 cents, providing an affordable, filling, and nutritious meal for the families of unemployed workers. The beef stew and other "poor man's dishes" (including canned products such as corned beef and cabbage, spaghetti and meat balls, and chili con carne) were highly regarded in those lean years. Authors Joseph J. & Suzy Fucini write:
"Encouraged by the success of its poor man's dishes, Hormel & Co. introduced an economical pork loaf in 1937. The canned meat ran into a major problem before it even got to market, however, when the U.S. government would not allow the company to call it ham, because it was made from pork shoulder instead of the hindquarters.

"In an effort to come up with a substitute name for the humble luncheon meat, Princeton-educated Jay Hormel turned to his country-club circle of friends. The younger Hormel threw a party at his 170-acre Austin estate and asked guests to 'pay' for cocktails by suggesting a name for the new product every time they ordered a drink. 'Along about the third or fourth drink they began showing some imagination,' the executive later recalled. It was Kenneth Daigneau, a visiting New York radio actor who suggested the name that was eventually chosen -- Spam.

"Like its predecessors, inexpensive Spam found a ready market in depression America. Sales of the proletarian pork dish were greatly aided by an advertising campaign featuring George Burns and Gracie Allen, which urged people to try a "Spamwich" or "Spambled eggs" for an economical lunch."