interesting connection with the war is Hormel’s best known meat product, Spam. The creation of the product was a simple efficiency. Hormel had been selling canned ham, but that was just one part of the hog. Why not grind the inexpensive and otherwise useless pork shoulder meat into a ham-like product that could also be sold? Though Spam was first marketed in the 1920s, it didn’t really take off worldwide until the war made canned meats an essential means of providing protein during war time shortages and other privations.
Spam became especially popular in the Pacific theater as a way of feeding American soldiers and their civilian allies. To this day, it remains a staple in Hawaii, Guam, and other Pacific islands, and despite a less than glamorous reputation in the U.S., is becoming an increasingly common ethnic staple. (Right now, you can get Spam musubi, a