Columnist Susan Snyder: Is Vegas good enough for Spam?

Tuesday, June 5, 2001 | 8:20 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Las Vegas may be near the top of the heap where tourists are concerned, but to the makers of Spam we're simply the B team.

We're not good enough for Spam -- at least not until next year.

That's when the second or maybe even third SPAMMOBILE will cruise into our town for a visit. The first trolley car-turned-mobile-Spam-can rolled off the assembly line in March.

Need a visual? Head on down to the grocery store and look at a Spam can. Add wheels. Now imagine one the size of a Winnebago.

Try not to shriek.

Anyway, since its completion the SPAMMOBILE has been to Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas and Indiana (and people wonder why I don't let on I was born there).

Later this summer it will tote its Spamburgers and Spambassadors (cooks) to Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin before heading back to Austin, Minn., where Hormel is based and the Spam Museum is located.

Hormel is the company that makes the often-maligned pressed meat product composed of pork shoulder, ham, salt, sugar and water. It was introduced in World War II as a canned food for the troops. Puts the fight in a person, I suppose.

Since then it has joined a following of people who love it and people who hate it. There's a Spam fan club. You can log onto the Spam website and order everything from boxer shorts to playing cards. There's even an annual Spam recipe contest at state fairs across the country.

I got to cover the very first one at the Florida State Fair in Tampa about eight years ago. Don't remember which recipe won. But I remember the guy who entered his recipe for "Spam Flambe."

He was a retired U.S. Navy officer who concocted the delicacy during an annual sailing trip with three old military buddies. It seems they'd been out longer than planned, and all that was left to eat was Spam. He said he knew they'd not touch it, after eating so much in the service. So he doused it with 151-proof rum and lit it aflame.

He was cooking on an alcohol stove.

"I almost burned the boat to the water line," he said.

Awful stuff, but he had the best story. Anyway, Geoff Northup, SPAMMOBILE spokesman, said they hope to have two more on the road by 2002.

"And Las Vegas is one of the places we'll hit," he said.

Promises, promises. Always the bridesmaid.

Right now the (my parents sent me to college for this) SPAMMOBILE is rumbling around the South and Midwest, where members of Spam's target market reside.

No, their mamas and daddies aren't brother and sister. Admit it. Some of you came from those places. We know you're closet processed pork-shoulder munchers.

Hormel is trying extoll the virtues of Spam to 18- to 25-year-olds by parking the thing in various towns and giving out free Spamburgers, Northup said.

"Most of the Spam-eaters are World War II veterans," he said. "They aren't buying as much. And some of them won't be buying it in the near future, if you know what I mean."

They're going to become octogenarian vegetarians?