16,000 Square feet about square meat

Do you like Spam (a lot) ?  Then come on down to the SPAM Museum in Austin Minnesota.

Quite possibly the world’s greatest museum dedicated to luncheon meat, the SPAM Museum teaches the history and origin of SPAM, its parent company Hormel foods, and the meat’s place in pop culture. With its tasty pork tongue planted firmly in its moist, yummy cheek, the museum is a fun and free meaty mecca.

Located in the center of Austin’s main street the SPAM museum fills the air before you even arrive with the aroma of grilled meat. Upon entering you are warmly greeted with free samples or “Spamples” (their words) of the meat products many delicious incarnations.  I had the Spam Turkey and the Spam Chorizo both of which my tummy gurgle with delight. (But I had skipped breakfast, so in all honesty my tummy was pretty promiscuous by then)

 

The Museum is broken down into several parts. The central area or “Can Central” features the panoply of SPAM mutations recipes and as the name implies lots of cans. Then you have the world of SPAM featuring exhibits of some of the 44 countries where the meat is available. These include the UK, Japan, Australia, China, the Philippines, and Mexico. These countries each have a kiosk where you can watch a commercial from their respective country.

 

The British section featured a mock pub called “The Flying Pig”

The origin of the SPAM sketch is based on the fact that after WWII Britain’s industries were pretty much entirely wiped out. Food was pretty scarce. Under the Marshall Plan we helped rebuild Britain by sending them supplies and food (which included SPAM). For a while SPAM literally was pretty much all there was to eat.

I can also relate. There was a time while my brother and I were growing up that my parents were really struggling so we had eat SPAM quite a bit. I have to admit i thought it was pretty tasty. Especially fried with some cheese and mustard on sandwich bread.

 

 

The SPAM Museum is in Austin, Minnesota right on Main Street. It’s a bit of a small museum but it is free and very entertaining. The city of Austin also features the mansion of the Spam Kings The Hormel family and they have a very lovely nature preserve on the edge of town. I will be doing a future on the preserve, it is very nice.