No Bone, No Waste

Bug is a World War II buff, so I wasn't surprised when he picked up The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns yesterday. He had a 30% discount coupon and $5 gift card that dropped the price of the book on sale for $9.99, originally priced at $50, to $2.53 (tax included).

As the title indicates, this book focuses on wartime life experiences instead of strategies and schematics.

Bug pointed out an insert that dealt with food rationing in the US, which displayed a picture of ration tickets and a Spam advertisement (pun unintended).

Spam meal idea (picture taken from The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, pg 222)

The ad suggested Spam birds, probably for Thanksgiving:

Wrap thin slices of Spam around your favorite stuffing, fasten with toothpicks, brown in a hot oven. Serve with garden peas, fried candied sweets.

Many people these days would be appalled by this, but I find it interesting. Then again, I enjoy eating Spam.

One can look at this and victory gardens as flag-waving propaganda, but I would rather view this as the ingenuity of people stretching what little was available.

Spaters

Inspired by the Spam birds and nudged by a growling belly, I fried up Spam with leftover mashed potatoes. Bug named them Spaters (Spam taters). Getting the Spam to remain closed was a bit of a challenge, crossed and parallel. I would have applied the toothpicks closer to the top edge, but I was afraid of the roll tearing.

The combination of salty, smoky, slightly crunchy and charred Spam was tasty with the lightly salted skin-on garlic mashed potatoes.

- Cassaendra