02/06/03’s illustrious band:

Spingle

Brought to you by my fabulous Spam calendar, a gift from Lightbringer and the Flexible Chef. This month’s reading from the Book of Spam:

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

Hormel’s new miracle meat in a can

Saves time, tastes fine,

To eat something grand ask for Spam.

You guessed it, my friends, the first radio ad jingle was for none other than Hormel’s new “meat of many uses for many occasions.” (Many uses? I thought it was just for eating.) The ditty hit the airwaves in 1937 and was sung to the tune of Bring Back My Bonnie to Me. Hormel sponsored several radio programs, including an early reality show called It Happened in Hollywood, in which five entertainment hopefuls documented their struggles to make it in Hollywood.

Today, 66 years later, the same concept still airs; it’s now on TV as American Idol. No comparisons between contestants and gel-covered, highly processed, rejected meatwads, please.

Spam ads also flooded major newspapers and women’s magazines. They were successful, too: In 1937, only 18 percent of urban Americans ate Spam, but by 1940, 70 percent did. Spam! It’s . . . what? . . . for dinner.

This reminds me, I got an interesting press release in the e-mail recently. It’s for a product called Veat -- vegetarian meat. At first I thought this meant the meat of vegetarians, and I thought advertising cannibalism was a pretty bold marketing move. Soylent Green! But no, it’s just a meat substitute, made from processed soy protein. Too bad. “Veat products reproduce the taste and texture of meat, chicken, and fish, while offering all of the nutritional benefits that health-conscious consumers demand,” says the press piece. Available as:

• Nuggets -- The taste and texture of chicken; ideal on their own or cold in a salad
  
• Gourmet Bites -- Bite-sized beef-substitute chunks
  
• Breast -- Just like chicken breasts, and perfect for sandwiches or barbecues
  
• Fillet -- Salmon-like taste and texture and featuring a nori seaweed ”skin”
  

Visit www.veat.com to learn more. Essentially, it’s new and improved tofu. Actually, it doesn’t sound all that bad. Not like that scary Quorn stuff that’s made from cultivated mycoprotein -- in other words, vat-grown fungus.

As a daughter of the Great Plains, someone who grew up in a community supported largely through the largesse of cattle ranchers, someone with many family members who still raise beef cattle, I want to say this:

JUST GET A BURGER!

There’s nothing wrong with a little red meat, people. Heck, the lean stuff is actually good for you in moderate amounts. You know you miss it. You know you want it. You know you deserve it. So have a nice, juicy steak tonight. Enjoy it guiltlessly.

And remember, shunning beef is as un-American as shunning McDonald’s. Turning your back on a platter of prime rib is the same thing as turning your back on this great nation’s economy. If you eat Spam, or Veat, or Quorn, well, the terrorists have already won.

E-mail the Media Sensation: jugglernaut@hotmail.com