The Resurrection of Spam and an Unexpectedly Healthy Recipe to Celebrate It

photo by Marie Matsuno Nash

Recipe and Story by Lael Morgan

A Washington Post story, October 20, 2017, boggled my mind.  The headline read, “Spam heists in Hawaii prompt retailers to put the wildly popular ‘mystery meat’ in locked cases. The snatchers are most likely part of a black market that’s taking off in the state.”

Happily, I was still hoarding a can left over from a 6-pack I’d purchased earlier.  I held a “Spam” party to celebrate, and it exceeded my expectations because of a delightful (and healthy) recipe I’d recently stumbled upon in a Native American publication.

Because the listed ingredients would serve 10 people and I didn’t want to cut any of them for fear of getting the proportions wrong, I invited friends with eclectic tastes to join me in trying this delicacy. When two of them declared they hated Spam. I added the mac and cheese recipe from the Kitchen Stories Cookbook (page 98) to the menu.

Only one of the group had never tried the prefab pork product, so we called her our “Spam virgin.”  The rest, like myself, had grown up thinking of the tinned meat as one of America’s most exciting and least expensive basic foods.

First introduced by the Hormel Foods Corporation in 1937, Spam was the only canned meat product on the market that did not require refrigeration.  During World War II, it was included in the c-rations of American GIs who, when they got sick of eating it in the field, gave cans away to the locals wherever they fought.

During this period, Native families who lived near the dozens of military bases in Hawaii, Alaska and other far-off lands began to view Spam as a diet staple. Many still do, and they are not alone.  Civilians around the world became smitten with Spam for a number of reasons;

1. Initially it usually came as a gift from some friend in the military.  
2. Another plus was that it was cheaper than ham, beef or chicken if you had to buy it.
3. It would keep darned near forever.
4. Plus many of us love the flavor and even those who don’t, know it will keep you alive in a pinch.

I am a real fan of fried Spam.  After working on a Bureau of Land Management firefighting crew where uncooked c-rationed Spam was too often our only staple, I backed off.  But I recovered from that overkill about a year later and usually, every couple of months, I’m looking for a Spam fix.

Of course, fried Spam has a few health drawbacks, like 13 percent cholesterol, 33% sodium, 25% fat and 30 % saturated fat.  Which is why the Spam Soup recipe appealed to me.  It offers more than enough healthy vegetables to outweigh those negatives, while preserving the flavor on which I am hooked.

And the reviews from dinner guests?  Well, even those who warned they didn’t like the product, agreed the soup had enough other ingredients to make it interesting and tolerable.  One even said she liked it!

As for our Spam virgin, she was impressed enough to order the dish again as a veteran.  And I was quite astonished that I enjoyed it so much. 

Ingredients 2 medium potatoes, chopped into inch-sized pieces 1 1/2 cups carrot, chopped into inch sized pieces 1 onion, chopped into small pieces  1 lb. bacon, cut in inch-sized pieces 1 can SPAM©  chopped into inch-sized pieces 1 can corned beef, cut into inch-sized pieces 1 can corn 1 can mixed vegetables 1 can tomatoes Hot water to cover

Directions 1. Cook bacon and drain. 2. Put potatoes, carrots and onion in a kettle or crockpot, adding just enough hot water to cover. Cook until almost tender. 3. Add SPAM, corned beef, corn, mixed vegetables and tomatoes, adding enough hot water to cover. Cook until ready to serve (about 30 minutes). 4. Stir in bacon, serve it in a little side dish to sprinkle on the top or leave it out, as preferred.

Holiday Magic

Column, photos and recipes

by Linda Altoonian

I adore the Christmas and New Year season! Town squares and fire-warmed homes are dressed in their finest. Sparkling lights, jeweled trees and beautiful nativity scenes celebrating the birth of Jesus abound. 

The mailbox is filled with cards and photos from those you love, and the seasonal music is magical--carolers, choirs, bell ringers and the symphony all making a joyful sound. This special time of the year is also the chance to deck your halls and don your cutest Christmas sweaters and sparkly cocktail dresses for parties galore with friends and family members. 

The food, however, may be the best of the year. Recipe cards that have come down through the generations are plucked from treasure boxes, and the process of replicating holiday meals from the past is begun. Pumpkin in creamy soups and pies, roasted turkey, seasoned stuffing and spiced cider are some of my favorites, but I also love the delicate appetizers and creamy punches that spark up any Christmas or New Years table. Here are two great ones:

Emerald Punch

Ingredients 1 large bottle of ginger ale 1/2 gallon of lime sherbet

Directions 1. Pour ginger ale over the sherbet. 2. Mix thoroughly and stand back for the applause.

Bruschetta

Ingredients 1 loaf of bread (French preferable), sliced thin on an angle Ripe but delicious tomatoes,  chopped small Olive oil Balsamic vinegar Lawry's garlic salt Basil

Directions 1. Put slices of bread on cooking sheet and toast in oven until light brown. 2. Mix three parts olive oil and one part vinegar in a bottle. 3. Add garlic salt, basil and even chopped garlic, if you like. 4. Mix thoroughly and pour over tomatoes with their juices. 5. Then spoon unto toasted bread and serve immediately.

Stove Top Stuffing Made From Scratch

Recipe and Photo

by Linda Altoonian

“Though a moist turkey was always the star on our holiday table, the costar was always my mom’s home-made, stove top stuffing. Most of it never made it to the table because every time folks passed the pan, they stole ‘just one more bite.”’ This is so good that you will find yourself making it year round.”

Ingredients 1 stick butter, melted 1 large onion, diced Turkey giblets, skinned, deveined and chopped fine 1 container of celery flakes 1 tsp. thyme leaves 1 Tbs. rubbed sage 8 slides of whole wheat bread, moistened with water or chicken broth, and chopped up

Directions 1. Sauté onion until golden. 2. Add giblets to onion and sauté until cooked. 3. Add all three spices and stir. 4. Add moistened bread and stir until coated with spices. 5. Cover and cook until bread is thoroughly heated and browned.

Thanksgiving, Triumphing Over Turkeys

by Lael Morgan

Celebrating Thanksgiving was my first real battle as a bride. It was the long-established tradition of my husband’s family that his mother and stepfather host a Pilgrim-appropriate, traditional dinner in the lovely dining room of their gracious Tudor-styled home in West Newton, Massachusetts. They had managed their mob scene of kith and kin for years.  They were famous for and proud of the feasts they’d provided. Family attendance was mandatory, but I refused to attend.

For starters, both my husband and I were in our last year as students at Boston University while holding down weighty part-time jobs, so we didn’t have much time alone together.  I knew if I gave in to my charming but strong-willed mother-in-law at that point, I’d be doing it for the rest of my life. Also, I longed to start a Thanksgiving tradition of my own that didn’t include turkey. 

So we newly-weds stayed home and enjoyed lobster followed by ice cream. Not only was it our favorite meal and dirt cheap in those days, but it required no advanced preparation except for covering our dining table with old newspapers and setting it with forks, nut picks and pliers while waiting 13 minutes for the lobster to steam as we melted butter.  That day was so lovely I felt guilty about it until my sister-in-law told me how much she envied our break-away and considered following suit.

Not that I disliked the usual Thanksgiving fare.  My forebears, like those of my in-laws, had come over on the Mayflower, and I loved all their menu basics.  In fact, I longed for something traditional when, a few years later, my husband and I sailed around the world on a 36-foot, 50-year-old schooner and Thanksgiving found us somewhere in the Inland Passage of the east coast.

Tying up to another boat of like-minded sailors, we hosted a spread which included mashed squash, cranberry sauce and a small turkey laboriously roasted in a fold-up oven planted over a primus stove. The meal, lubricated with local moonshine, was a great success, but, alas, I retired before cleanup and was awakened at 2 a.m. when our boat dragged its anchor towards the rocky shore, with that of our still tied-up guest, in a violent storm.

            Mustering on deck in heavy rain, wearing only my nightgown, I managed to untie the boat of our friends while my husband kept us all off the rocks and maneuvered to a safe place in the harbor.  But I did consider suicide when I discovered the stormy seas had bounced mashed squash and cranberry sauce on our galley ceiling and lodged turkey, raised rolls, butter and Indian pudding with whipped cream in our bunks.

Later, on my own, when teaching at University of Alaska Fairbanks, I dragged out all my traditional Thanksgiving recipes for the parent-deprived students and single faculty who became my guests. This went well until our holiday celebrations became super popular and one Thanksgiving morning at 5 a.m. I found myself preparing a turkey that weighed almost as much as I did.

Still groggy from sleep deprivation, I finally got the bird I could barely lift into the oven, only to push the “Clean” button for which there is no “Off” switch.  That meal was saved by a strong neighbor who managed to push the stove forward so we could unplug it.

         I also enjoyed traditional Thanksgiving fare when two friends and I illegally traveled the private Dalton Highway from Fairbanks to the North Slope where all the oil is, over a Thanksgiving break.  Knowing there was only one stop where food was sold along that two-day haul, we precooked a traditional meal and enjoyed it cold at a spot on the map labeled “Gobblers Knob” for no reason we ever heard of.

Years later, I returned to New England to run a newspaper for my now ex-husband and began attending his family Thanksgiving celebrations where I was overjoyed to discover the menu was based on my stubborn legacy of lobster. Having replaced his mother as the keeper of family traditions, he had long since made lobster the standard. Traditional kith and kin brought cooked turkeys, pumpkin pies and the usual holiday fare to enjoy the next day, but he provided a marvelous lobster bake banked with seaweed on the shore of Snow Island in Maine that would convince even the most severe doubter that this was a good idea.

Today, back in Alaska where Maine lobsters cost a zillion dollars to import, I sometimes substitute Alaska king crab which are darned near as tasty and takes the same scant time to produce.  Or, if I have some extra time, I may go with turkey this year because I love the wings and stuffing and Indian pudding. However, I do have reservations about how our Pilgrim Fathers treated the Indians who saved their lives on that first thanksgiving when the new settlers didn’t have their sox up (i.e. a winter food supply).  In fact, it is my theory that most of those who landed on or about Plymouth Rock couldn’t have survived without the kindness of Indian strangers.

Yet this holiday is about giving thanks today. It’s not a time capsule in which to deify our founding fathers or the Native Americans who saved them. Which is why I feel free to celebrate it with a menu of my choice, felling no guilt if I have kitchen time constraints.

Martha Washington's Valley Forge

Recipe and Photo

by Linda Altoonian

“Making great crab cakes is considered an art form in Maryland. I know because I grew up there. Nothing was more pleasurable than seeking out the restaurants that made the best crab cakes during our sometimes weekly trips to the Chesapeake Bay and Ocean City. “Often those restaurants were nothing more than dilapidated shacks (inspiration for the name Joe’s Crab Shack) hidden in some hamlet along the shore, but the ambiance didn’t diminish the succulent lumps of blue crab meat or the sweetness of the soft-shelled crabs, often eaten in their entirety. There are as many crab cake recipes as crabs in the Chesapeake, but I like this one for its simplicity.”

Ingredients 1 lb. crabmeat 1 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs 1 large egg 1/4 cup mayonnaise 1 tsp. dry mustard Oil for frying Additions 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste, chopped green pepper or green onion

Directions 1. Remove all cartilage from crabmeat 2. Mix breadcrumbs, egg, mayonnaise, and seasonings. 3. Add crabmeat and mix gently but thoroughly. If mixture is too dry, add a little more mayonnaise. 4. Shape into 6 cakes and fry in just enough oil to prevent sticking. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side.

Martha Washington's Valley Forge

by Lael Morgan

Although my first published book was a cookbook, and I’ve covered many gourmet ventures as a reporter, I was slow to become aware of the growing interest in culinary history.

From my childhood, I readily recall the cast-iron, wood-burning stoves my mother and grandmothers coaxed into producing such delicate fare as angel food cakes, crème puffs and apple pies. I remember also how thrilled we were when technology improved, and we used an oil burner in a fire box instead, and then, with great excitement, onto cooking with electricity, natural gas, and the invention of the broiler.    

I came from that long ago time when you could watch your butter churned and fetch fresh eggs from warm nests of boastful, clucking hens. Big gardens, berry picking and gathering wild fiddlehead greens made up for the fact that grocery stores were unknown in my section of rural Maine and lacked sophistication even in its larger cities.

As challenging as meal preparation may have been for us, imagine colonial America with its complicated meal preparation minus shopping and stoves of any sort! Those were things that I never considered until I delved into The Martha Washington Cookbook by Marie Kimball, as authorized by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania which owns the original. Yea gads!

Granted, Martha was one of wealthiest widows in Virginia when she wed the gentleman farmer who would become father of our county, and Martha traveled first class. Her dower included 150 slaves and the couple had 14 house servants, so the first First Lady probably didn’t peel many potatoes. She was apparently one heck of a manager, though, delegating the dirty work but keeping a stern eye on even the smallest details.

The Washingtons owned five farms which operated as semi-independent units.  George managed those operating expenses, making the rounds daily via horseback, while Martha oversaw the housekeeping, oversaw the kitchens, doled out the meals, and purchased the staples for humans.

Actually purchasing staples makes it sound too easy, because her job was also to supervise the making of wines and cordials, planting supply gardens, having grains milled into flour, canning, pickling, the preparation of hams and sausage, figuring the butchering schedules, the spinning and weaving of fabrics, directing the dressmaking and tailoring, the creation of fashionable hats, and shoe cobbling—all things we can do today with one trip to Walmart!

Most amazing, though, is the kitchen Martha had at her disposal.  It was, of course, first class for its era, but would have defeated all but the cleverest of us today.  It was in a separate building from the dining room, where all the stewing, boiling, roasting and baking was done in a big, open fireplace, with hangers and hooks for various pots and kettles, a roasting jack, plus Dutch and brick ovens.

To make them perform properly required an arsonist: someone who knew how to kindle fires of slow burning wood with properly flavored smoke, and how to handle incendiary blazes for quick searing and frying.  All, of course, without a temperature gauge.

With such quaint home appliances, one might assume Martha kept the menu simple, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  Hers was the rich plantation era where entertaining required three grand courses for dinner.  As proof, author Kimball offers a menu suitable for an evening in the month of February in 1792.  The first course included small chicken patties, soup puree with salmon, pork cutlets with sauce, stewed red cabbage, boiled chickens, shoulder of mutton, mashed potatoes, shrimp sauce, greens, Scotch collops, ham, beef temblongue (pudding), boiled turkey, fricasseed French beans, celery sauce, oyster loaves, soup with stewed carp, and butter.  

Those who survived were expected to eat their way through a second offering of two ducks, a wine sauce, prawns, asparagus, lamb’s tails, plovers, two teal, fruit in jelly, custards, roasted hare, crayfish, three partridges, sweetbreads and fricasseed carardoons, a plant similar to the artichoke.

Kimball goes on to explain that after the second course, the table cloth was removed, wine, fruit and nuts were set out, and the ladies retired so the men could discuss business.  However she also notes that, “As a rule, dinner parties were confined almost exclusively to men; occasionally the wife of the host was present, and sometimes other women, but this was rather unusual.”

Considering cooking duties, I’d guess the hostess couldn’t leave the kitchen for fear the partridges, sweetbreads or roasted hare might be underdone, or the prawns overcooked with the plovers. Yet later, as the president’s lady in the nation’s capital, Martha’s appearance at the dining table was noted by William Maclay, a senator from Pennsylvania who claimed the meal she prepared to be “the best of the kind I ever was at.”  According to Maclay’s account, soup, roasted and boiled fish, meats salmon, fowls, etc., were on the menu, and dessert included apple pies, puddings, iced creams, jellies, watermelons, musk-melons, apples, peaches and nuts. 

Although the President was known as a cold and formal politician, Martha developed a fine reputation as a hostess, even though her husband was slow to budget for a housekeeper to help her keep up with the wide political swath they cut.  However, please note that, although Martha was a year younger than her husband, she died just two years after he breathed his last. 

Their marriage appeared to be a love match, and perhaps she died of grief.  She had traveled hundreds of miles to be with George at his winter military encampments including Valley Forge, which had to have been rough sledding.  However, it is my humble guess that despite the many Revolutionary battles George weathered and the time Martha spent with him on the warfront, she fought her own Valley Forge in the primitive kitchens of Mt. Vernon and Washington, which definitely took their toll on her health. 

Between 1768 and 1775, it’s estimated the Washingtons entertained 2,000 guests at their dining table.  And George didn’t do the cooking! 

Mushrooms: Mystery Murder and Joy

Recipe and Photo

by Linda Altoonian

Ingredients 1/2 lb. mushrooms 2 T. butter 1/8 tsp. salt 1/8 tsp. pepper 1/8 tsp. garlic salt 2 T. red wine (optional)

Directions 1. Wash and slice mushrooms. 2. Brown butter and add mushrooms. Stir so they are coated. 3. Add seasonings and wine if using. 4. Cover and cook on low for 15 minutes.

Mushrooms: Mystery Murder and Joy

by Lael Morgan

The mushroom crop made an early appearance in central Alaska this spring. We’re not sure why, but we’ve enjoyed magnificent feasts, plus ample supplies of poison mushrooms to murder everyone we might have on our hit lists.  

No, please don’t think that cooking is dull.  It’s time to recognize the power of your kitchen maven, although it can be hard to detect danger, here.  Especially if you know and love your cook.

Years ago I was surprised to get a sign-for registered letter from Alaska Northwest Publishing for whom I’d been working for years.  It turned out, owner Bob Henning had produced a much-needed guide to Alaska mushrooms and sent employees advance copies, only to discover some idiot editor had switched captions under the most poison mushroom we had illustrated and one that was delightfully edible.

I dutifully destroyed my book but I’ve always wondered how many of that edition are still out there.  Be very careful with any antique mushroom recipes you collect from Alaska Northwest Publishing.

Which brings to mind my favorite rumor about the last Russian royal family which may or may not be true.  I’ll furnish no footnotes, but most history buffs know the last tsar before the Russian Revolution, Nicholas II and his Romanov clan, were hemophiliacs and had other medical conditions unique to their family tree.

Most unusual was the supposed fact that they could all eat poison mushrooms without feeling the slightest bit ill, and that they made good advantage of that gift.  Because they were wealthy and in total control of one of the most fabulous countries in the world, strangers often contacted them claiming to be close relatives.  And if those strangers persisted, the Romanovs would invite them to dine, with poison mushrooms as the menu centerpiece.

No problem, of course, if the new-comers really were close kin.  Otherwise, claims of being a long-lost relative were usually nullified before dessert was served.

Best to gauge your mushrooms even more carefully than your relatives before attempting Linda’s delicious recipe of the month.

Oysters on the Half Shell

Ingredients 6 oysters on the half shell 2 lemon wedges a dash of horseradish 1/8 c. cocktail sauce

Directions: 1. Chill oysters. 2. Open and leave juice in deposit shell. Serve on cracked ice. 3. Add lemon juice and dip in cocktail sauce with a cautious bit of horseradish and enjoy.

Oysters on the Half Shell

by Lael Morgan

Not surprisingly, the menus for George and Martha Washington’s famous three course dinners involved a lot of oysters.  They lived near the Virginia coast which many early settlers counted on for its bounty.  Oyster loaves—the critters creamed and baked briefly in hollowed out bread shells sealed with egg whites with buttered exteriors—were popular.  So were scalloped oysters which were much like scalloped potatoes. However, the less squeamish preferred them raw.

You should also be warned that oysters are thought to be an aphrodisiac, Yet my parents, who met and married late in life and adored each other as well as oysters, bought them by the peck and probably not for sexual incentive.  (Still, it’s possible that oysters are part of my DNA).

Shortly after my birth, my family moved from the coast to central Maine, where seafood could not be trusted.  So I was introduced to raw oysters, not by my parents but by my college roommate’s father who apparently did not enjoy them to the fullest.

“Just bite them once and then swallow them,” he instructed. However, I decided to take a second bite and became addicted.

Live oysters are hard to open but there are good instructions on how to do it on line. And if you are emotionally torn about the experience of eating live seafood, ask yourself if it is humane to boil and eat spinach, which also has feelings although lacking in deep thinking capacity.

For your first raw oyster adventure, keep the extras simple.  Recipes for Mignonette Sauce for raw oysters contain so much ground pepper and garlic that I suspect the authors didn’t want to taste the main course, but to keep up with the elite by eating something that is labor intensive and expensive.  Start with the basic the recipe below and enjoy exploring beyond it.

Blushing Bunny for Easter Relief

Ingredients 8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese shredded ¼ c. sour cream 10.5 oz.can tomato soup unadulterated ½ tsp dry mustard 2 tsp. Worcestershire Sauce 4 slices of toast or the equivalent in saltines

Additions:  1/2 tsp. garlic salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper Directions: 1.  Heat sour cream, Worcestershire, mustard and soup undiluted.   2. Add cheese and stir until melted. 3. Serve immediately on toast or crackers.

Blushing Bunny for Easter Relief

by Lael Morgan

Easter dinner or supper will be one of the biggest meals of the year for many; so big that you’ll be blitzed by the media with recipes on how to cook a ham and make traditional hot crossed buns. Neither recipe can be found in our Kitchen Stories Cookbook, but I do suggest you take a look at our Welch Rarebit on page 120 for an interesting stop-gap while waiting for the big deal.

Why?  Because in the frenzy of preparing Easter dinner, the rest of the day is often forgotten and stomachs growl.  So let me introduce a perfect fill-in dish for the holiday. It will delight the youngsters before the big event if that is scheduled for evening, or serve as supper for following a big lunch.

Welch Rarebit is a traditional comfort food which was created to cover up for hunters who came home empty handed.  It is simply cheese in white sauce or with a sour cream base served hot over toast or crackers.  But my creative mother—strapped by a tight budget and lack of ration stamps during World War II—created Blushing Bunny by adding a can of Campbell’s tomato soup to the mix. 

My little brother and I loved the very thought of this creation which we crunched on saltines.  And we still think of it as nifty. Holiday or no holiday, it is a lite but complete meal if you serve it with salad.