Spam in vogue? Not in my house!

True confessions:

In a moment of pandemic panic, I bought a tin of corned beef. One cold and COVID winter's evening, surely I would look to comfort food, and make myself some hash. I do recall that there's a good recipe for it - one that calls for canned corned beef - in my Good Cheap Food cookbook. It's a paperback book that I acquired in the 1970's that now has a broken spine, a torn and dog-eared covered, and dried up pages - all brown and brittle, some falling out - that disintegrate at the touch. But it is the source of the recipes for two dishes I make with some frequency: spaghetti carbonara and quiche. So I hang on to it. And I do believe there's a recipe for hash in there. The last time I made it - maybe 40 years ago? - it was pretty damned good. So at some point, I'll make me some hash.

It will not, of course, be as good as my mother's. Hers was the real deal. The night after we had a corned beef dinner - always on St. Patrick's Day and another time or so each year - my mother got out her meat grinder, screwed it onto the counter, and ground up the leftover meat for hash. I wasn't wild about corned beef dinner (other than the boiled potatoes). But I do love hash. And my mother's was awesome.

Then there's deviled ham. I do not have any on my shelf now, but once in a while, I have a craving for an Underwood Deviled Ham Spread sandwich. Revolting, I agree, and it doesn't happen that often, but once in a while. Maybe it's just that I love the can with the little devil on it...

Which brings me to Spam, which as a kid I loved. (No accounting for a kid's taste: I also loved fried baloney.)

Every once in a while, my mother would serve us Spam for dinner - cooked up in a cast iron skillet and accompanied by home fries. Delish. Unless she sneaked green pepper into the home fries, which I hated for some reason. Anyway, I loved Spam night. I can still feel the chemical burn on the tip of my tongue that occurred when I took the first, yummy bite.

We didn't have Spam all that often, and it was only served for supper when my father wasn't home. Having spent 4 years in the Navy during WWII, he felt that he'd had his full lifetime ration of Spam.

And now, I've heard, there's been a surge in demand for Spam.

Canned meat is having a moment. Demand is booming across the globe. In the United States, sales surged more than 70 percent in the 15 weeks ended June 13. In the UK, consumption of canned corned beef has taken off. Even in South Korea, where Spam is an old favorite, sales are expanding at the fastest pace in years. At first, people were loading up on pantry staples with a long shelf life during lockdown conditions. Then, shortages of some fresh meat supplies, especially in the US, also helped to drive sales. Now, the economic downturn is underpinning demand. (Source: Bloomberg)

Good news for Hormel, but I'd consider turning vegan before I took the key and uncoiled a can of Spam...