RECENT food trends have been rather boujie, but in the nostalgia-fuelled run-up to VE Day, tinned foods are flying off the shelves.
Upmarket supermarket, Waitrose, has reported that wartime staple SPAM, tinned lunch meat, has replaced avocados and pistachios as the new hot thing.
7
7
7
7
A wave of nostalgia has brought the tinned lunch meat back into fashion.
Spam is a processed meat that was a staple because of its shelf life during wartime rationing.
The versatile lunch meat can be sizzled into a fritter, eaten straight from the tin or chopped into salads.
Despite spam’s traditional reputation as “rather unpleasant,” Waitrose reported that sales are up 48% on this time last year.
But that’s nothing compared to old favourites, Beef Corn Slices and shortbread fingers, whose sales have increased 64% and a whopping 79% respectively.
Searches for wartime favourite recipes such as bread and butter pudding and root vegetable casserole have shot up 733% and 120% respectively.
Even celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is a fan and decided to elevate his favourite childhood staple.
In his National Geographic series Uncharted, he recalled: “My Mum served us spam, egg, chips and beans, it was a big staple. So why not?”
Ramsay, 58, cheffed up a snazzy spam sandwich with characteristic flair – complete with a teriyaki glaze, miso mayonnaise and grilled pineapple.
7
7
7
Food influencers have jumped on the bandwagon.
Culinary connoisseurs, the lads behind Sorted Food, a YouTube channel with nearly 3million subscribers, have several spam-themed recipes.
They’ve snuck the adaptable meat into eccentric sounding dishes ranging from spam musabi, army stew style pasta to sesame fried spam with broccoli.
TikTok star Oliver Adkins, known as Ollie Eats, instructed his over half a million followers to squish the meat into Yorkshire puddings.
Creating a wacky hors d’oeuvres, he stuffed the puds with mashed potatoes, slices of spam and slathered them in gravy.
For a healthier asian take, Marina Georgallides suggested grating and air-frying spam to create a salty dish.
But she warned that it was essential to drench the fried spam in Korean pepper paste, gochujang, soy sauce and oil to truly make them “ping.”
Imogen Livesley, Waitrose archivist, said of the data: “As the 80th VE Day anniversary approaches, we’re seeing customers connect with the past by turning to the comforting familiarity of foods popular in wartime Britain.
“It seems the taste of history is proving a popular ingredient in commemorating the 80th anniversary, with classics like fish and chips, spam, and bread and butter pudding underscoring the emotional connection to this era, with food acting as a powerful vehicle for remembrance and commemoration.”
A Brief History of SPAM
SPAM has transcended notoriously fickle food trends to enjoy enduring popularity since 1937.
It was first launched in the US by Hormel Foods Corporation as a way of increasing sales of the unpopular pork shoulder.
A blended mush of pork shoulder, ham, salt, water, potato starch, and sugar is compressed into the iconic blue packaging with the block spam branding emblazoned on the front.
Hornel still produces spam, which sold its eight billionth tin in 2012.
It became a staple during WWII when getting fresh meat on the front lines was impossible.
The tins travelled with the troops, and spam became popular across the world, from Japan to the Philippines, the Pacific and the UK.
In 1941, the fateful spam arrived in the UK as part of the Lend-Lease program under which the US supplied the Allies with food, oil and guns.
Rations lasted well into the fifties, and it became a staple part of the British diet.
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher branded it a “wartime delicacy.”
Indeed, it became so central to British culture, it was honoured with its very own Monty Python sketch, the “flying circus.”
In the iconic comedy series, the Vikings sing: ‘Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!’