SPAM, SPAM, Museum, and SPAM

I'm back in the Twin Cities for another business trip. On our drive up, my coworker and I made a detour to Austin, Minnesota, the home of Hormel. There we visited the SPAM Museum. The people at the SPAM Museum were very friendly, beginning with the security guard who came out of her guard shack to greet us as we drove up. As soon as we entered the museum, an employee greeted us and showed us a huge wall of SPAM containing over 3,000 cans of SPAM! In the photo to the left, I am standing next to the SPAM mascot, SPAMMY.

We viewed a short film about SPAM which included some footage of a women's quartet, the SPAMETTES, that sings songs about the venerable luncheon meat. The movie also showed a six-year-old who won a contest creating a recipe for chili cheese SPAM dogs. They didn't look too bad.

The museum showed us the history of SPAM, from its prevalence in meals of soldiers during World War II up through the Monty Python SPAM sketch. We saw a few other films, including one about the Hormel Girls, a group of women who traveled the country promoting SPAM and other Hormel products.

After stopping at the SPAM gift shop, we were getting hungry as it was 3:00 and we hadn't had lunch yet. We went to a diner across the street from the museum where they had a supplementary SPAM menu. My coworker ordered the deep fried SPAM strips while I had the Western SPAM Sandwich which included SPAM, sautéd onions and peppers, cheese, and barbecue sauce. These SPAM entrees were pretty good. We then continued on our way to Roseville, Minnesota, were we will be for the next seven days!