As Singapore celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival this month, South Korea celebrates its Chuseok – a 3-day holiday when they pay respects to ancestors and visit the family. While we gift people with mooncakes here in Singapore – the more outrageous the merrier – people in Korea go ga-ga over expensive gift packs of… SPAM.
Yes, it’s the same SPAM you see in supermarkets, shelved under ‘canned meat’. According to its distributor, CJ CheilJedang, South Koreans consumed the equivalent of 24 cans per person. To the average South Korean, it’s “the most universal” present. Kinda like our Ferrero Rocher.
In South Korea, SPAM gift sets are the norm for the holiday, with prices ranging from 30,000 to 40,000 won (SGD35-SGD46). A premium Black Label hamper – with six cans of of canned meat and two bottles of olive oil – will set you back around 90,000 won (SGD105).
Unsurprisingly, there’s a SPAM factory in Chuncheong Province in South Korea, producing more varieties than you’d care to consider: Classic, Mild, Bacon, Garlic, etc. “If you’ve got SPAM,” the slogan on the can proclaims, “you’ve got it all!” These are mostly only available in Korea, or overseas at Korean shelves or specialty supermarkets.
There are also local Korean brands like CJ and Lotte producing this popular packed meat.
SPAM and the infamous Army Stew
First launched in the US before WWII, it became not only a staple diet for soldiers, it became a status symbol for South Koreans. In fact, South Korea is the biggest consumer of SPAM outside the US (where Hawaiians are the biggest consumers).
It’s the high salt and fat content that complement the spicy, tangy elements of Korean food – like kimchi – very well. They eat it fried in egg batter, on top of rice or with kimchi wrapped in gim (seaweed), among many recipes. The most popular way to eat it is in Army Stew (Budae Jjigae), which is one of the most popular foods in South Korea, and the reason SPAM became so desirable.
The dish’s predecessor is the kkulkuri-juk (piggy porridge), which was created around the time of the Korean War, when South Korea was experiencing extreme poverty. The dish was often sold by the bowlful outside of U.S. military bases, where plentiful food scraps were chucked. Koreans would get bagfuls of these scraps – not just food, some even contained cigarette butts! – and made them into this piggy porridge stew that had pieces of SPAM.
When the war ended, the locals had developed a craving for American-made processed meat products. However, they weren’t technically available to locals unless they knew the right people. Products like SPAM, hot dogs, and ham could be bought from Korean women with access to American troops. Unsurprisingly, a black market for these meats thrived.
SPAM was only made legally available for sale in 1987, around the time that South Korea democratised. Today, Koreans still can’t get enough of the stuff, so you’ll find shelves of different versions of SPAM at the supermarkets.
So if you want to gift Korean friends – or you just want to practise Korean culture – you can simply send them a hamper full of SPAM. The kind that people actually enjoy receiving.
