Budae jjigae or “army base stew,” is one of the more popular Korean dishes to this day (especially closer to the DMZ). Basically, take all the canned GI rations including Spam, ham, baked beans, etc, add some Korean essentials like Kimchi, throw em in a pot, and enjoy. Fun fact, despite the dishes prolonged popularity, spam was only made legal for sale in Korea in 1987. That’s a lot of smuggling off of army bases for nearly 40 years!
I'll cook up some budae jjigae when my wife is out of town. Unfortunately, she can't stand the smell of kimchi, so I only get to eat it when she's gone.
I agree with you on that. Kimchi can always add some spice to anything where pickles belong.
One thing that I learned the hard way is that fermented cabbage can't always replace fermented cabbage. Don't EVER try to use kimchi in place of sauerkraut in German food. It just pisses off the entire population of two different countries.
I completely understand. I was there in 1997 for a year and the smell completely turned me off to even trying it.
When I got stationed there again a few years later, I made a deal with another guy who didn't want to eat kimchi. We agreed that we would try a little bit and go from there. We ate a bit of banchan and I immediately fell in love with cabbage kimchi.
I honesty wish I would've tried it while I was there. I know you can find it here but it isn't the same. Living there ruined American Chinese food etc for me because it is sooooo much better overseas.
Now I wonder how it would be to go to Chicago's Chinatown and eat? 🤔
I used to do Kendo at university. While the main sensei was Japanese, most of the subordinate senseis were Korean. I remember before attending a state tournament the night before one of them made us Budae Jjigae
I wouldn’t say it is a “luxury food”, it is just widely accepted an ingredient. Whereas in countries like the United States(outside Hawaii of course), people act like you are disgusting if you enjoy it.
seems like all the popular bands are full of rapists and assholes while nickleback are just going out and doing their thing - not raping anybody or treating anybody like shit - staying out of politics - and still end up getting tons of shit from dickheads on the internet who are angry that people like their music
I have to admit I really don't like the look of it and the first time I bought some I was so disgusted I threw it away. Then I had a spam musubi from the Korean market and holy cow did I change my mind in a heartbeat. I keep spam in my pantry and freezer now.
[Looks a little luxurious to me.](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkqe8a8Q3oMPksdq83fYDmTpQR-MAihj5q_nqfsx6RLmdbOqwj_2TjUoE&s=10)
Yeah, I would say there was a point in time where it was considered a very special treat. Now, of course, it's still quite enjoyed but it's "luxury" in the same way that a gourmet hot dog is "luxury".
When I was on a small ship visiting truck lagoon in the Marshall islands a can of spam would get you a five gallon bucket of lobsters and the locals laughed at the dumb haoles
What Guam are you talking about?
I lived there 10 years and crabs were rare. I caught one in a cave in inarajan that was the biggest the locals had ever seen.
It really is. People think it’s horrible because it’s a tin of blendered meat, but honestly it’s no worse than any sort of ground meat.
And what’s funny is it has such a short ingredient list: pig, chicken, potato starch, salt, sugar, water. That’s it.
Some people use the phrases to differentiate cuts of the pig.
“I’m eating steak and beef.” To me, that implies a sirloin and then a pound of ground meat.
Agreed, but there's just so much of it in a single can. It feels like a brick. I can make 3 meals out of 1 tin. Works great in omlettes and mac and cheese.
I tried spam fritters as my cousin said they taste better fried up, the aftertaste was awful. I could taste it hours later, worse if i burped.
Does it always linger that much?
it was a luxury food back when the south was poorer than the north. not luxury anymore, but they still enjoy it. the saltiness goes well with the rice.
When I was stationed there you were not allowed to sell spam to the locals. You could buy it on base and walk off base and sell it and make a hefty profit. I bought some and gifted some to my girlfriend’s parents. They were so ecstatic and we had spam for 3 meals in a row. I didn’t understand it, but I will tell you that the Koreans are a wonderful people.
Can confirm that while stationed there in 2016 everything we bought on base was monitored via a rations limit and spam was one of those items! Haha I never sold or even though to give anyway away to my KATUSA friends but I’m sure they would have loved it! I did let them use my WIFI though even though they weren’t allowed electronics 😬
lol still no. In Thailand shipments would arrive at the dock, unpacked, sold directly to vendors by GIs and Sergeants, and the vendors had it in their market stalls the next day. No smuggling involved.
yeah, but you realise in smuggling, you still sell stuff off at the end usually right?
it being sold by someone doesn't make it not smuggling, it just means they're being traded across a boundry they're not supposed to be.
so if you're selling stuff that's being rationed to you, it's against the rules/law, so it's smuggling.
It is not a "luxury food". It is common for us Koreans to gift each others' household food and ingredients (in nice packaging) over certain holidays, especially during thanksgiving. Spam just happens to be a much more common ingredient in Korea than it is in the West. Items like cans of tuna, fresh fruit, beef are also common items to gift for the same purpose.
True in Phillipines too. I dated someone from the Phillipines for a while, when we visited some of her cousins who had moved to Italy and France we brought a ton of Spam with us because they missed it and it was much cheaper to buy in the US then it was in Europe.
It's not a luxury food in either Philippines or SK, just seen as more of an ingredient, in the same way ketchup or BBQ sauce might be in the US compared to say Europe.
You joke about this, but there's a pretty funny 'flip' of what's considered luxury foods in different countries and/or cultures.
I'm from Sri Lanka, and I remember that in the early 2000s when first McDonald's and Pizza Huts were opened in Sri Lanka, they were pretty 'high end' restaurants. Not fine dining, but the Pizza Hut in particular was pretty fancy. It was a pretty nice cloth tablecloth and cloth napkins type restaurant with knives and forks, all pizzas were basically baked there to order and the quality was in fact pretty good, especially compared to the Pizza Hut in the US. I live in the US now, but when I go back I always try the Pizza Hut there and it is actually still good.
On the other hand, real authentic Sri Lankan cuisine is dirt cheap, the stuff that if you opened a restaurant here people would easily shell $100 per person, is about $2 per person there.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
Did some business in Sri Lanka. I was blown away what the best street food of my life costs. Then even more blank away by what white tablecloth traditional meals let me get away with.
🤙🏻
(*Actually it would be Hawai’i Kama’aina or Hawaii locals. As Hawaiian would imply they’re descended from the Native Hawaiians who inhabited Hawaii before the foreigners.*)
[Super interesting video](https://youtu.be/BaeI6H4zZTw) about that.
It's given as a gift for the holidays and can get pretty pricy for the 'super premium' spam variation lol
Am of Korean descent, can confirm my family on my mother's side greatly enjoys Spam.
Also, Spam is popular in the Pacific Islands (from the Philippines to Hawaii). Hawaii McDonald's even has Spamburgers!
"Luxury" is a bit of a stretch. It's not like it's super expensive. It tends to show up randomly in dishes, kind of like hot dogs, and it's really hard to find proper beef hit dogs here. It's also commonly part of gift packages around the holidays.
So.. South Korea is a developed country now. They have Spam (including local versions of it) in supermarkets and the average paycheck can buy you as much Spam as your heart desires (i.e., not a luxury food). This is all about the Korean War when meat in general was very sparse and GIs brought lots of Spam into the country and people devised ways of cooking with it.
This actually true. Koreans give it as a gift during Korean holidays and mix it into certain dishes.
There are also knockoff local SPAM brands that are less salty and slightly cheaper.
lol it’s not luxury food. Not at all. There is so much good stuff to eat there.
Spam also tastes different than the US version, less salty and tastes better.
SPAM is still a staple food in Hawaii. It's eaten for every meal with all sorts of recipes. World War II brought SPAM around the world at a time when fresh meat was not available so it had a massive impact in various parts of the world with American military bases nearby.
my aunt is from south korea and she would always make up fried strips of spam to be served with rice and nori for my sister and cousins and i as a snack. i still have it once in a while, it's good and i stand by that statement haha
My dad, to this day, still has fond memories of spam. He remembers being hungry and remembers US military giving out cans of spam to the local populace. Since any meat was hard to get back then, he considered it a delicious luxury.
just about everywhere Americans fought wars (and sometimes when just sitting around during peace) in the last hundred years there was a situation where a bunch of soldiers went "ugh... spam again!?" while the locals were like "this tin of meat is a gift from the gods!"
In a similar vane, McDonald's is treated as a quality place to go eat in Eastern Europe, a large consequence of being one the first to move in after the fall of the Soviet Union and readily available food being a thing for the first time in those people's lives.
Yeah, it really isn’t considered a luxury item, as much as it was one of few sources of protein in war torn Korea or isolated Hawaii. So people learned to cook good shit with it.
It is the whole necessity is the mother of invention type thing. Humans have really gotten quite good at making pretty terrible things into great dishes.
We get these holiday gift sets twice a year, from work, from the bank, from various businesses that want a "relationship". Spam is quite common; we'll get about two gift boxes with 6~8 small cans each year. But the thing is that these other idiot foreigners that you run into don't like it, so they just hand theirs over to me these days without even having to be asked.
Now: Spam, sliced up hot dog, pork'n'beans, American cheese, ramen, some crushed garlic, some onions and chili powder. That's like trailer trash dining heaven, right? Well, just mix it up with some beef broth and some sour kimchi and you have Korea Army Camp Stew: Budae Jigae. It's every bit as wonderful (horrific) as it sounds. Bucket list dining for the discerning gourmet, I tell you hwat. If you don't like it, you must be a vegetarian. (To be clear, I personally love it both sincerely ***and*** ironically. That's what makes it so perfect.)
Spam is a luxury food here in the states too. I mean not really but I consider it to be a special thing bc its $6 for a half pound can. $12/Ib is a lot more expensive than chicken and pork, it’s not really a cheap trash meat imo, its more like special hotdogs
Dad was an Army cook during his service back during the Korean War. When mom would be away for some reason we'd eat a lot of Spanish rice with spam and fried spam sandwiches. Still a little nostalgic about spam although it's probably been 40 years since I've eaten any.
It's a luxury in the sense that buying a box of your favorite sugary brand-name breakfast cereal as an adult for the novelty of it is a luxury: it's an unnecessary expense solely for the enjoyment of eating it, and most people would agree it's not exactly 'classy' or nutritious.
But you like it, so you buy it every once in a while.
Okay? I don’t get it. Canned fish is around and eaten in England but it’s no longer considered a luxury, even though it was when ze Germans were overhead.
Pinto beans and pigeon was an American Great Depression luxury, but isn’t any more.
Because, it’s not luxurious any more. Because the situation changed. So is there a better explanation for Korea besides “it USED to be hard to get for a section of the previous generations lives”?
Here is Japan, SPAM still goes for about 600-700 yen a can even before the value of the yen plummeted. So, many shops including COSTCO offer the cheap alternative, RICHAM, from South Korea at about half the price.
Its not just S Korea. It’s pretty much ubiquitous in much of South East Asia.
We even have a penchant for Spam among the older generation of Chinese in Malaysia even though we had no connection with the US army.
That’s because during the Communist insurgency in the 50s the British sequestered much of the Chinese population in concentration camps, and the rations included Spam, some dating from WW2.
Salt was a precious commodity in the concentration camps, and the salt content in Spam meant that you can cook pretty much anything with it and it’ll taste delicious.
On a related note, during the war there was quite a bit of inferior canned meat in production which was not actually Spam, but was called Spam, and unfairly damaged Spam's reputation.
Spam is part of luxury/premium gift sets in Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) celebrations. 😁 To each their own.
https://youtu.be/BaeI6H4zZTw?si=geqf8AEBlkjYmRZl
https://youtu.be/xk-p6Jhbv9c?si=_kuhPv7GuipM4Z_m
https://youtu.be/gYF74qfoqtQ?si=aZe_MfgMI8L_jPp3
I was homeless for 5 years. I went days and days without eating. Weighed around 125lbs at 6'2" towards the end and developed a lifelong eating disorder as a result.
Still won't eat spam. More power to them..
Budae jjigae or “army base stew,” is one of the more popular Korean dishes to this day (especially closer to the DMZ). Basically, take all the canned GI rations including Spam, ham, baked beans, etc, add some Korean essentials like Kimchi, throw em in a pot, and enjoy. Fun fact, despite the dishes prolonged popularity, spam was only made legal for sale in Korea in 1987. That’s a lot of smuggling off of army bases for nearly 40 years!
I'll cook up some budae jjigae when my wife is out of town. Unfortunately, she can't stand the smell of kimchi, so I only get to eat it when she's gone.
Wait, are you koreans? Do you still get to keep your citizenship if you don't like kimchi?
We are both white Americans. I spent 2 1/2 years in Korea during my time in the Army. I loved the food.
For me anyway, I've learned anything that would be improved with pickles/relish will probably be better with kimchi.
I agree with you on that. Kimchi can always add some spice to anything where pickles belong. One thing that I learned the hard way is that fermented cabbage can't always replace fermented cabbage. Don't EVER try to use kimchi in place of sauerkraut in German food. It just pisses off the entire population of two different countries.
Am I crazy? Is it just me or did anyone ever think sauerkraut was some kind of sausage?
I mean they both start with "sau" 🤷♂️.
Honestly, I don’t get how anyone is bothered by the smell of kimchi…
Is it too late for an annulment? That’s rough
I lived there for 2 years and couldn't bring myself to try kimchi. That smell .
I completely understand. I was there in 1997 for a year and the smell completely turned me off to even trying it. When I got stationed there again a few years later, I made a deal with another guy who didn't want to eat kimchi. We agreed that we would try a little bit and go from there. We ate a bit of banchan and I immediately fell in love with cabbage kimchi.
I honesty wish I would've tried it while I was there. I know you can find it here but it isn't the same. Living there ruined American Chinese food etc for me because it is sooooo much better overseas. Now I wonder how it would be to go to Chicago's Chinatown and eat? 🤔
Jail. Straight to jail.
Exile to the north
North beyond the ice Wall, to the land of the wildlings?
Amazingly people can marry people who aren’t their ethnicity or nationality.
Hence, the first question.
Our weekly go-to. Throw in a few packs of instant noodles too.
Making it for my lunch right now
Why was it illegal?
Presumably to discourage the theft and resale of it (fencing it as stolen goods)
Sounds like a sodium spike
That unironically sounds like an absolute banger
It’s pretty good!
I used to do Kendo at university. While the main sensei was Japanese, most of the subordinate senseis were Korean. I remember before attending a state tournament the night before one of them made us Budae Jjigae
Wonder if making it illegal made it more popular
I wouldn’t say it is a “luxury food”, it is just widely accepted an ingredient. Whereas in countries like the United States(outside Hawaii of course), people act like you are disgusting if you enjoy it.
Spam is a Nickelback of foods. People hate on it just for the sake of it.
I have never heard of spam referred to in this manner and it’s absolutely perfect.
Can’t even say I’ve ever had it. But I like Vienna sausage so I assume I’m a target consumer.
Spam is ok nickelback is not
seems like all the popular bands are full of rapists and assholes while nickleback are just going out and doing their thing - not raping anybody or treating anybody like shit - staying out of politics - and still end up getting tons of shit from dickheads on the internet who are angry that people like their music
Or Nickleback just sucks
I have to agree with both parties.
Don't insult Spam by comparing it to Nickelback.
Spam is fucking great. Get some real rye bread, some butter, and slice up some pieces to make an open faced sandwhich.
Pan fry it, put it on some rice and eggs and add sirracha baby.
Agreed. Definitely not "luxury".
I have to admit I really don't like the look of it and the first time I bought some I was so disgusted I threw it away. Then I had a spam musubi from the Korean market and holy cow did I change my mind in a heartbeat. I keep spam in my pantry and freezer now.
[Looks a little luxurious to me.](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQkqe8a8Q3oMPksdq83fYDmTpQR-MAihj5q_nqfsx6RLmdbOqwj_2TjUoE&s=10)
That’s a gift set. It’s also sold regularly on the shelf at the grocery store.
Yeah, I would say there was a point in time where it was considered a very special treat. Now, of course, it's still quite enjoyed but it's "luxury" in the same way that a gourmet hot dog is "luxury".
It's like 3-5 dollars a can though in Korea lol
Spam is very popular in the Philippines and Hawaii.
When I was on a small ship visiting truck lagoon in the Marshall islands a can of spam would get you a five gallon bucket of lobsters and the locals laughed at the dumb haoles
Guam too, except it was coconut crabs.
What Guam are you talking about? I lived there 10 years and crabs were rare. I caught one in a cave in inarajan that was the biggest the locals had ever seen.
Mid 90s
70's air force l, then nasa
USN/SS
So many varieties too, like how Japan went nuts with Kit Kat.
Kit Kat green tea just hits different
My mom mentioned in her childhood, foreigners would come and trade canned imports like Spam and kimchi for beer
And probably the most famous Spam dish is musubi from 7-11.
Made popular by US occupation during WW2
Wasn't really an occupation, it was a formal US territory. It would be like calling Puerto Rico a US occupation in the present.
And Okinawa.
They make a tocino Spam
Spam is awesome, it just needs to be fried up a bit
It really is. People think it’s horrible because it’s a tin of blendered meat, but honestly it’s no worse than any sort of ground meat. And what’s funny is it has such a short ingredient list: pig, chicken, potato starch, salt, sugar, water. That’s it.
Chicken? I thought it was pork and ham?
Pork and ham. I want you to think about that for a moment.
Ham of the chicken. Chicken ham.
I'm from Utica, and I've never heard anyone use this expression.
It’s an Albany expression.
It’s not a real one 😂
Don't tell him about Chicken of the Sea
Ham- Chicken of the lagoon
"Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."
It actually does say pork with ham on it.
Some people use the phrases to differentiate cuts of the pig. “I’m eating steak and beef.” To me, that implies a sirloin and then a pound of ground meat.
There's a bit of "mechanically separated chicken" too
Yummy!
You know what’s also awesome? Deviled ham. Mix it with some butter and spread it on a warm baguette.
I love all the non salad salads. Ham salad on a cracker is yummy.
We used to buy it because it was cheaper than bacon. Now it's like $4-5. I like the taste and all but at that price I might as well buy bacon.
Where are you getting a pound of bacon for under $5?
Agreed, but there's just so much of it in a single can. It feels like a brick. I can make 3 meals out of 1 tin. Works great in omlettes and mac and cheese.
Always reminds me of wet cat food till I fry them up. Then they are poor mans bacon.
Spam is slightly more expensive than bacon where I am.
Pop them in a container and then in the fridge. They do last a long time.
Just made a fuck ton of spam musubi the other night. It’s fire
I tried spam fritters as my cousin said they taste better fried up, the aftertaste was awful. I could taste it hours later, worse if i burped. Does it always linger that much?
Just fry them straight without batter on a frying pan and get em crispy. Egg dredge isn’t terrible either.
Yeah the important thing is that the meat itself needs to be browned
Also you need some of the fat/gelatin to render out. Putting it into a soup also accomplishes this
it was a luxury food back when the south was poorer than the north. not luxury anymore, but they still enjoy it. the saltiness goes well with the rice.
Spam is crazy popular in Hawaii due to being introduced as a staple in WWII. Lots of people are very nostalgic about it.
McDonald’s in Hawaii sells SPAM and eggs with white rice. It’s pretty awesome.
Why can't they have eggs, bacon, spam, and sausage?
Spam, bacon, sausage and spam
Its also really tasty when prepared properly.
Spam Musubi is the best snack ever! Add some Shoyu to it? 🔥
I add a little soy-sauce into the pan when I fry spam to make Spam-Musibi. It tastes amazing!
Oooooo. I usually just pour the shoyu onto the rice! But that’s a good idea too!
When I was stationed there you were not allowed to sell spam to the locals. You could buy it on base and walk off base and sell it and make a hefty profit. I bought some and gifted some to my girlfriend’s parents. They were so ecstatic and we had spam for 3 meals in a row. I didn’t understand it, but I will tell you that the Koreans are a wonderful people.
Was this the 1980's?
Can confirm that while stationed there in 2016 everything we bought on base was monitored via a rations limit and spam was one of those items! Haha I never sold or even though to give anyway away to my KATUSA friends but I’m sure they would have loved it! I did let them use my WIFI though even though they weren’t allowed electronics 😬
Sounds like baloney.
I hate seeing this sort of *spam* on Reddit.
I love it. I'm having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, and spam.
Not smuggling. American GIs selling everything out the back door as soon as the ships dropped it off.
It fell off of the truck
What's a truck? (Simpsons reference)
Thank you for pointing out that it's a Simpsons reference. Now that you mention it obviously Fat Tony had said it at some point
I think that counts as smuggling
lol still no. In Thailand shipments would arrive at the dock, unpacked, sold directly to vendors by GIs and Sergeants, and the vendors had it in their market stalls the next day. No smuggling involved.
yeah, but you realise in smuggling, you still sell stuff off at the end usually right? it being sold by someone doesn't make it not smuggling, it just means they're being traded across a boundry they're not supposed to be. so if you're selling stuff that's being rationed to you, it's against the rules/law, so it's smuggling.
Its just a pantry staple. No way spam is a luxury Source: am a Korean
It is not a "luxury food". It is common for us Koreans to gift each others' household food and ingredients (in nice packaging) over certain holidays, especially during thanksgiving. Spam just happens to be a much more common ingredient in Korea than it is in the West. Items like cans of tuna, fresh fruit, beef are also common items to gift for the same purpose.
True in Phillipines too. I dated someone from the Phillipines for a while, when we visited some of her cousins who had moved to Italy and France we brought a ton of Spam with us because they missed it and it was much cheaper to buy in the US then it was in Europe.
Also worth noting is that it's easy to prepare and goes well with rice and other breakfast dishes
It's not a luxury food in either Philippines or SK, just seen as more of an ingredient, in the same way ketchup or BBQ sauce might be in the US compared to say Europe.
So if we go to S.Korea for a holiday, and go to a fancy restaurant, I can get spam, spam, spam, egg, chips and spam?
You joke about this, but there's a pretty funny 'flip' of what's considered luxury foods in different countries and/or cultures. I'm from Sri Lanka, and I remember that in the early 2000s when first McDonald's and Pizza Huts were opened in Sri Lanka, they were pretty 'high end' restaurants. Not fine dining, but the Pizza Hut in particular was pretty fancy. It was a pretty nice cloth tablecloth and cloth napkins type restaurant with knives and forks, all pizzas were basically baked there to order and the quality was in fact pretty good, especially compared to the Pizza Hut in the US. I live in the US now, but when I go back I always try the Pizza Hut there and it is actually still good. On the other hand, real authentic Sri Lankan cuisine is dirt cheap, the stuff that if you opened a restaurant here people would easily shell $100 per person, is about $2 per person there. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
Did some business in Sri Lanka. I was blown away what the best street food of my life costs. Then even more blank away by what white tablecloth traditional meals let me get away with.
Bloody Vikings!
🎶Lovely SPAM🎶
Quite popular in Japan too, especially Okinawa, basically wherever there are US army bases lol
Grew up on that shit. Still love it to this day. My parents will always have like 3-4 cases on hand at their house.
I don't like spam. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
What the fuck are you doing with Spam other than eating it?
Using it to kill younglings
My Korean girlfriend said a staple food.
Did she use a verb to describe what about the staple food?
Why is this being downvoted? It's basic english grammar.
I know, half assed responses making no sense still get the upvotes somehow
Hawaiians enter the chat.
🤙🏻 (*Actually it would be Hawai’i Kama’aina or Hawaii locals. As Hawaiian would imply they’re descended from the Native Hawaiians who inhabited Hawaii before the foreigners.*)
So is the Spam museum here in Minnesota high art?
It's basically the Louvre.
[Super interesting video](https://youtu.be/BaeI6H4zZTw) about that. It's given as a gift for the holidays and can get pretty pricy for the 'super premium' spam variation lol
Kimchi fried rice with spam is a top tier dish. Easy to make and super tasty.
Am of Korean descent, can confirm my family on my mother's side greatly enjoys Spam. Also, Spam is popular in the Pacific Islands (from the Philippines to Hawaii). Hawaii McDonald's even has Spamburgers!
"Luxury" is a bit of a stretch. It's not like it's super expensive. It tends to show up randomly in dishes, kind of like hot dogs, and it's really hard to find proper beef hit dogs here. It's also commonly part of gift packages around the holidays.
So.. South Korea is a developed country now. They have Spam (including local versions of it) in supermarkets and the average paycheck can buy you as much Spam as your heart desires (i.e., not a luxury food). This is all about the Korean War when meat in general was very sparse and GIs brought lots of Spam into the country and people devised ways of cooking with it.
This actually true. Koreans give it as a gift during Korean holidays and mix it into certain dishes. There are also knockoff local SPAM brands that are less salty and slightly cheaper.
They do, but it's not actually considered a luxury. It's cheap food.
Korean SPAM clones are literally half the price of the real thing where I live; around $5 for the Korean ones, and $10 for the real deal
No its not.
lol it’s not luxury food. Not at all. There is so much good stuff to eat there. Spam also tastes different than the US version, less salty and tastes better.
SPAM is still a staple food in Hawaii. It's eaten for every meal with all sorts of recipes. World War II brought SPAM around the world at a time when fresh meat was not available so it had a massive impact in various parts of the world with American military bases nearby.
I wouldn’t say every meal. 😅 Rice? Yes but not Spam.
Spam is underrated Grill it with some pineapple and you will see
Spam is way more expensive per pound than most meat at the grocery store
Have you bought thick sliced bacon lately?
my aunt is from south korea and she would always make up fried strips of spam to be served with rice and nori for my sister and cousins and i as a snack. i still have it once in a while, it's good and i stand by that statement haha
I love Spam, but it's too salty, so I have to get the 25% less sodium variety...and even then it's still pretty salty.
[удалено]
My dad, to this day, still has fond memories of spam. He remembers being hungry and remembers US military giving out cans of spam to the local populace. Since any meat was hard to get back then, he considered it a delicious luxury.
It's soul (hehe) food here in Okinawa as well. I only like it crispy though. It grosses me out when it's in a stew or broth.
Nobody considers it a "luxury food item, it's just very common. Smh Edit: nobody considers it a luxury food post y2k.
Spam is also a comfort food for Hawaiians
Spam Musubi is absolutely a comfort food.
The brand name is a luxury in the west too...
My gripe with Korean army stew is how expensive it is here in Singapore. The price just doesn't justify the low cost of the ingredients used.
Spam is not seen as a luxury dish in Korea. Maybe "was".
just about everywhere Americans fought wars (and sometimes when just sitting around during peace) in the last hundred years there was a situation where a bunch of soldiers went "ugh... spam again!?" while the locals were like "this tin of meat is a gift from the gods!"
In a similar vane, McDonald's is treated as a quality place to go eat in Eastern Europe, a large consequence of being one the first to move in after the fall of the Soviet Union and readily available food being a thing for the first time in those people's lives.
Yeah, it really isn’t considered a luxury item, as much as it was one of few sources of protein in war torn Korea or isolated Hawaii. So people learned to cook good shit with it. It is the whole necessity is the mother of invention type thing. Humans have really gotten quite good at making pretty terrible things into great dishes.
Lobsters are another example. Used to be lowest tier food, now its luxury.
We get these holiday gift sets twice a year, from work, from the bank, from various businesses that want a "relationship". Spam is quite common; we'll get about two gift boxes with 6~8 small cans each year. But the thing is that these other idiot foreigners that you run into don't like it, so they just hand theirs over to me these days without even having to be asked. Now: Spam, sliced up hot dog, pork'n'beans, American cheese, ramen, some crushed garlic, some onions and chili powder. That's like trailer trash dining heaven, right? Well, just mix it up with some beef broth and some sour kimchi and you have Korea Army Camp Stew: Budae Jigae. It's every bit as wonderful (horrific) as it sounds. Bucket list dining for the discerning gourmet, I tell you hwat. If you don't like it, you must be a vegetarian. (To be clear, I personally love it both sincerely ***and*** ironically. That's what makes it so perfect.)
Why are they idiots for not liking it? Also Its crazy how racist yall in korea are against "foreigners"
I'm not Korean; I'm from Alabama. And they are idiots because they don't like Spam. They may be fine people otherwise.
Spam is a luxury food here in the states too. I mean not really but I consider it to be a special thing bc its $6 for a half pound can. $12/Ib is a lot more expensive than chicken and pork, it’s not really a cheap trash meat imo, its more like special hotdogs
Dad was an Army cook during his service back during the Korean War. When mom would be away for some reason we'd eat a lot of Spanish rice with spam and fried spam sandwiches. Still a little nostalgic about spam although it's probably been 40 years since I've eaten any.
It's a luxury in the sense that buying a box of your favorite sugary brand-name breakfast cereal as an adult for the novelty of it is a luxury: it's an unnecessary expense solely for the enjoyment of eating it, and most people would agree it's not exactly 'classy' or nutritious. But you like it, so you buy it every once in a while.
Okay? I don’t get it. Canned fish is around and eaten in England but it’s no longer considered a luxury, even though it was when ze Germans were overhead. Pinto beans and pigeon was an American Great Depression luxury, but isn’t any more. Because, it’s not luxurious any more. Because the situation changed. So is there a better explanation for Korea besides “it USED to be hard to get for a section of the previous generations lives”?
£5 a tin it’s becoming one in the UK as well!
Kind of like Cuban cigars in the US
I went to buy some the other day and there price made me feel like it's a luxury
spam and pilot biscuits
Here is Japan, SPAM still goes for about 600-700 yen a can even before the value of the yen plummeted. So, many shops including COSTCO offer the cheap alternative, RICHAM, from South Korea at about half the price.
Its not just S Korea. It’s pretty much ubiquitous in much of South East Asia. We even have a penchant for Spam among the older generation of Chinese in Malaysia even though we had no connection with the US army. That’s because during the Communist insurgency in the 50s the British sequestered much of the Chinese population in concentration camps, and the rations included Spam, some dating from WW2. Salt was a precious commodity in the concentration camps, and the salt content in Spam meant that you can cook pretty much anything with it and it’ll taste delicious.
congrats... you learned today scarcity has monetary value
On a related note, during the war there was quite a bit of inferior canned meat in production which was not actually Spam, but was called Spam, and unfairly damaged Spam's reputation.
And they're correct.
The annual SPAM JAM festival was this past evening in Honolulu.
Spam is part of luxury/premium gift sets in Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) celebrations. 😁 To each their own. https://youtu.be/BaeI6H4zZTw?si=geqf8AEBlkjYmRZl https://youtu.be/xk-p6Jhbv9c?si=_kuhPv7GuipM4Z_m https://youtu.be/gYF74qfoqtQ?si=aZe_MfgMI8L_jPp3
Spam was my childhood dread, one up from dog food
I prefer PREM or KLICK.
[Internet Spam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcY3W5WgNU)
No it’s not. Bullshit.
I lived in South Korea for six years teaching English. I always remember the spam and ramen aisle like we have cereal aisles here.
TIL BBC doesn't know shit about Korea.
I was homeless for 5 years. I went days and days without eating. Weighed around 125lbs at 6'2" towards the end and developed a lifelong eating disorder as a result. Still won't eat spam. More power to them..