On this date in 1891, Spam was invented. It was one of those great inventions when a guy at a butcher shop said, "What do you want to do with all these leftover pig parts?"  Tastes great fried and on toast, maybe add an egg.  If you haven't tried spam, you certainly have not lived.  Put it in the category with potted meat and Vienna sausages.  Mystery meat at it's finest.

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Spam (officially trademarked as SPAM®) is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Food Corporation. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrate as a preservative. Spam's gelatinous glaze, or aspic, forms from the cooling of meat stock. The product has become part of many jokes and urban legends about mystery meat, which has made it part of pop culture and folklore.

Varieties of Spam include Spam Classic, Spam Hot & Spicy, Spam Less Sodium, Spam Lite, Spam Oven Roasted Turkey, Hickory Smoked, Spam with real Hormel Bacon, Spam with Cheese, and Spam Spread. Availability of these varieties varies regionally.

Spam that is sold in North America, South America, and Australia is produced in Austin Minnesota, (also known as Spam Town USA) and in Fremont Nebraska. Spam for the UK market is produced in Denmark by Tulip under license from Hormel. Spam is also made in the Philippines and in South Korea. In 2007, the seven billionth can of Spam was sold. On average, 3.8 cans are consumed every second in the United States.

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