Some may read this headline and wonder whose mind is small enough to make a practical joke at a time like this. Let me therefore enlighten any such reader by revealing it is no joke. As New York’s Daily News reports with a straight face, Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam, has indeed announced it would be donating over 264,000 cans of the meat-based product to a faith-based relief organization on the island.
Spam, you see, is a staple in Hawaiian cuisine. As Gini Mayehara, a young Hawaiian woman, noted in a guest column in this publication in 2022, Spam was introduced to Hawaii by the U.S. Military during the Second World War, when food was scarce. The Japanese used the luncheon meat in conjunction with balls of steamed white rice to make musubi, a popular snack to this day. Today, the Daily News observes, the people of Hawaii consume “more than 7 million cans of Spam products every year, more than any other U.S. state.”
We salute Hormel’s humanitarian effort and urge readers of AppleEats to purchase “SPAM ❤️’s Maui” t-shirts, 100% of the proceeds from which will go directly to the Aloha United Way’s Maui Fire Relief Fund. (The shirts are available in sizes S-3XL.)
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