KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM Delma Guevarra, front, Tessie Dungo, center, and Timothy Thomas work on a batch of 350 Spam musubis at the Pizza Shop. They make about eight batches every day.

By Betty Shimabukuro
betty@starbulletin.com

If you are a pink blob of pork in a can, this is your week. The planets are in alignment, the stars are singin' your song, of this I have proof: The Waikiki Spam Jam begins tomorrow, and, as it happens, word has just arrived of the national Spam recipe champ, and it is ... a Spam & Jam Layered Sandwich.

Coincidence? The Great Spam Plan allows not for coincidence.

Adding to the fol-de-rol in Waikiki, the Great Wall of Spam is to be built at Restaurant Row, a second annual attempt to break the world record (3,500 cans set in Austin, Minn., home of Hormel, the creative mind behind Spam).

The stars are indeed shining on your pink gelatinous self, Mr. Spam.

The winner of the Best Spam Recipe Competition was Rachel Brooks, of Georgia. Her dish is Spam layered with cheese and jam, in a baked crescent roll crust. Pretty simple, but sprinkled with powdered sugar and cut into finger lengths, it looks elegant enough to fool even anti-Spammers. You know the type -- "I've never had Spam in my life!" they say, pinkies raised in alarm. You know they're lying.

And who dares mock Spam?
you? you? you are not worthy
of one rich pink fleck

Yes, Spam is the people's food -- rock solid and Porky Pig honest. Yet someone's always trying to dress it up.

The Spam Jam will be no different. Among the many activities will be a cook-off on Friday, pitting chefs from various hotels in a battle to fancify Spam. You can taste and help judge, for $50. But if that seems un-Spammy-like expensive, the Spam Jam offers lots of stuff for free, primarily Saturday's festival o' Spam, but also the kickoff event tomorrow, construction of the world's longest Spam musubi.

At 125 feet in length, the musubi will use 275 cups of steamed rice, 500 slices of Spam and 208 feet of nori.

Waikiki Spam Jam World's longest Spam musubi: Building begins noon tomorrow, Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center, with comedian Frank De Lima as emcee. Free samples. Taste of Paradise Spam Cook-off: 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sheraton-Waikiki. Tickets are $50, which includes tasting and wine. Call 931-3155. Spam Jam Street Festival: Food booths, crafts, entertainment, Spam-eating contest, scavenger hunt, 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday along Kalakaua Avenue. Free. (Kalakaua will be closed from Seaside to Kaiulani avenues at 2 p.m.)

The man in charge of this enterprise is Matt Bowden, who issues forth up to 2,500 musubis every day out of an unlikely storefront called the Pizza Shop. (Explanation: Bowden's business began 18 years ago as a manufacturing plant for pizza, but has since expanded to include sandwiches and seven types of musubi. He hasn't gotten around to changing the name of the shop, but that's OK, the dichotomy merely adds to the legacy that is Spam).

The world-record musubi will be a small project for Bowden and his crew, equivalent to 60 cans of Spam, or five batches of musubi. They're used to tonnage -- 30 batches at once. The Pizza Shop supplies ABC and Food Pantry stores, military outlets, movie theaters and lots of individual vendors. Bowden also sells frozen musubi to Sam's Club.

For tomorrow's project, sheets of nori will be laid out along a length of tables, and volunteers will be invited to help assemble the rice and Spam. Afterward, the mega-musubi, equal to 500 individual ones, will be up for public eating.

Why is Hawaii so enamored of Spam? Bowden has a theory: "No. 1, it's the roots. We are a canned-meat kind of consumer because of the sugar cane days. You couldn't take something out in the field that was perishable. Something like Vienna sausage and rice was handy." So was Spam.

As for making the ideal Spam musubi, Bowden suggests you begin with good rice. "Locals aren't very discerning when it comes to rice. They'll eat pretty much anything you give them as long as it's cooked and as long as it's white."

Through a careful washing, soaking, cooking, steaming and "cutting" process (to open up the rice and prevent overcooking), Bowden aims for rice that isn't mushy, with independent kernels and "a pearly, iridescent sheen."

The Spam is prepared via a "secret method" to give it a nice, caramelized color and flavor. He uses low-sodium Spam, by the way. "The thing is half salt anyway, right? And you're going to cook it and baste it in teriyaki sauce. You have to cut the salt somewhere."

That's as much of a health concession as he'll make, though. "We tried the lite (Spam), but a lot of people had a negative reaction."

Old retired jocks to
star in ads for new SPAM Lite
"Tastes filling!" "Less great!"

That poetic passage, as well as the others in this piece, comes courtesy of Keola Beamer, who, when not making or writing music, enjoys the art form of Spam haiku.

He's posted some on his Web site, www.kbeamer.com. Click on "humor" and scroll way down to the haiku link. It's a bit buried on the site -- on purpose.

People have been sending the haiku since 1995, Beamer says. "Some were really funny and some were kinda lame, but it got popular and then it was getting a little too popular. We didn't want our site to be all about Spam, so we moved it all to the back."

Beamer says he doesn't eat much Spam personally, but is amused by the cultural phenomenon. "It's funny how people relate to Spam," he says. "Whenever there's any little crisis in Hawaii, we gotta buy Spam. Hawaiian Air declares bankruptcy! Gotta buy Spam."

Does this interest creep into his music? "Hopefully not," he says. Too bad. Imagine such deep thoughts set to song, with slack-key accompaniment:

Pink beefy temptress
I can no longer remain
Vegetarian

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Spam & Jam Layered Sandwich

HORMEL

2 8-ounce tubes refrigerated reduced-fat crescent dinner rolls
1 12-ounce can Spam Oven-Roasted Turkey, thinly sliced
4 slices Colby cheese
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/3 to 1/2 cup raspberry jam
Powdered sugar

>> Maple Mustard Sauce
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Separate dough into 4 long rectangles. Place crosswise on 1 large or 2 small ungreased cookie sheets. They should not touch. Firmly press perforations to seal. Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until golden. Cool on pans 5 minutes.

Top one crust with half the sliced Spam and Colby cheese. Place second crust on top of cheese. Top evenly with remaining Spam and Swiss cheese. Place third crust on top cheese; spread evenly with jam. Top with fourth crust.

Returned layered sandwich to oven and heat 15 minutes, until filling is hot. Let stand 5 minutes.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and slice into 1-inch pieces.

Combine sauce ingredients and serve with sandwich pieces for dipping. Serves 6.

Variation: Use regular Spam instead of turkey Spam, or use both in the different layers.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per serving: 600 calories, 30 g total fat, 9 g saturated fat, 60 mg cholesterol, greater than 1,600 mg sodium, 53 g carbohydrate, 26 g protein.

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Nutritional analyses by Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S.

Great Wall of Spam To donate: Cans are being accepted at Restaurant Row's security office. All the Spam will go to the Hawaii Foodbank. Call: 532-4750 Literary Spam These events take place Saturday at Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach as part of the Spam Jam: Book signing: Sandi Takayama, author of "The Musubi Man" and "The Musubi Man's New Friend," 11 a.m.; Ann Kondo Corum, author of two Spam cookbooks, 1 p.m. On stage: Honolulu Theatre for Youth presents "The Musubi Man," noon and 2 p.m. Free.

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