I have tried Spam in all manner of dishes over the past few years. I have recited the squawky lines from the classic Monty Python sketch as I’ve created my own, including frying it directly into pancakes when they dropped that limited-edition pumpkin spice Spam on us back in 2019 . And when I heard that this was National Canned Luncheon Meat Week, there was nothing that could keep me from writing about it in what I believe to be its most delicious format: musubi.
As I observed back then, Spam’s primary flavor profile is salt. Then pork. It is best when griddled.
And there is nothing that offsets this wondrous assault on the taste buds more beautifully than sushi rice, firm and fluffy, along with a whisper of sweet and heat and fishy-nutty furikake — all of it wrapped in the gloriously chewy umami of nori. It is flavor. It is texture.
It is everything. Its origins are debated — some trace Spam musubi to the island of Kauai, specifically to the kitchen of a Japanese-American woman named Barbara Funamura; others believe it was a creation borne of the Japanese internment camps of World War II — but it is indisputably delicious. I’ve had it with kimchi.
I’ve had it with avocado. Most recently, I had it volcano-style. I love it all.
You might, too. So, in celebration of this shelf-stable marvel of relatively modern culinary engineering, here’s a short list of places you can try it in Orlando. New from the folks who brought you Hanalei Shave Ice : Musubimomma ! Brand.
