They do, or at least they did if they had the right to kill the swans which not all the colleges did. I assure you we had swan once a year. And why not, if you are prepared to eat geese and ducks? There is no shortage of swans. Though of course there would be if the hoi polloi were to get the taste.

However....

Count me as one more admirer of the poem, Ann. I have pleasant memories of Spam, which I associate with the sort of dinner a hapless student could cobble together, back in the early seventies, in a dorm room with a hotplate. The canned pink stuff partook of the romance of youth and independence. Somehow I doubt it would work as well now.

Fried Mars bars can be had around here at the State Fair.

John! An Oxford man saying "the" hoi polloi? What is education coming to - or in our cases, where was it then?

An overabundance of articles is as deplorable as unnecessary batter.

As to swans, do not press me too hard on the subject or I shall be reduced to quoting the old swans/dons limerick and irretrievably lowering the tone of this thread.

You are right about the hoi polloi but I am simply following the example of W.S. Gilbert.

PEERS: Our lordly style
You shall not quench
With base canaille!
FAIRIES: (That word is French.)
PEERS: Distinction ebbs
Before a herd
Of vulgar plebs!
FAIRIES: (A Latin word.)
PEERS: 'Twould fill with joy,
And madness stark
The hoi polloi!
FAIRIES: (A Greek remark.)

Ah, Ann, there are other rhymes for swans, you know. I can remember the first and last lines of the one below, but have had to invent the three others, so if you or anyone knows the authentic (anonymous) original I should be most interested to see it

A Frenchman who went to St John's
Had a brain that impressed all the dons
But, with cricketing skill
Little better than nil,
He never got into the onze.

As for the omnivorous Mr Whitworth . . .

While John was swan-supping at Merton
Others studied the output of Burton -
Not Robert, that's clear
But the home of fine beer -
With results best concealed by Time's curtain.

Two Semantic Limericks - Gavin Ewart

1. According to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933)

There existed an adult male person who had lived a relatively short time, belonging or pertaining to St. John’s*, who desired to commit sodomy with the large web-footed swimming-birds of the genus Cygnus or subfamily Cygninae of the family Anatidae, characterized by a long and gracefully curved neck and a majestic motion when swimming.

So he moved into the presence of the person employed to carry burdens, who declared: “Hold or possess as something at your disposal my female child! The large web-footed swimming birds of the genus Cygnus or subfamily Cygninae of the family Anatidae, characterized by a long and gracefully curved neck and a majestic motion when swimming, are set apart, specially retained for the Head, Fellows and Tutors of the College.”

2. According to Dr Johnson’s Dictionary (Edition of 1765)

There exifted a person, not a woman or a boy, being in the firft part of life, not old, of St John’s* who wifhed to – the large water-fowl, that have along and very straight neck, and are very white, excepting when they are young (their legs and feet being black, as are their bills, which are like that of a goofe, but fomething rounder, and a little hooked at the lower ends, the two fides below their eyes being black and fhining like ebony).

In consequence of this he moved step by step to the one that had charge of the gate, who pronounced: “Poffefs and enjoy my female offspring! The large water-fowl, that have a long and very straight neck, and are very white, excepting when they are young (their legs and feet being black, as are their bills, which are like that of a goofe, but fometimes rounder, and a little hooked at the lower ends, the two fides below their eyes being black and fhining like ebony) are kept in ftore, laid up for a future time, for the fake of the gentlemen with Spanish titles.”

*A college of Cambridge University

I was thinking the Snoek line would run along better if a three syllable adjective replaced funny. But I often trip on lines that bother nobody else so I figure its something odd in how I read.
Not that it matters, its a funny salty meat song either way.

Spammed
 

If you've yet to try it
There's something quite like it
(The famed pre-war foodstuff that's Spam);
Perennial best buy
The savoury pork pie,
That's the same, less the crust, in a can.

Two possibly-relevant verses from a doggerel poem I wrote recently:

...
"A piston engine? Bargain!"
So his spouse was madly trying
With justifying jargon
To explain what she'd been buying.
Feeding birdies in the park
By hurling tins of ham,
She'd killed a swan. Oh, what a lark!
“I drink, therefore I am.”

A General role-model
Is disgusted by this plot:
"One mustn't molly-coddle;
They should all of them be shot!"
Loud Vikings in a cheap café
Chant gladly at a menu
Centred on Spam; in every way
An odd snake-circus venue!
...

I'm pink, therefore I'm spam.