Spam
 

Spam

Beautiful Spam, so nearly meat,
You came about as a wartime treat
With a pinch of pork and a hint of ham
And a whiff of austerity, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, who then would wish
For Snoek or any funny fish
Or flesh of billy, bull or ram?
Oh, meat of the multitude, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, your pale pink prism,
Plonked on a plate with Platonism,
Stands for the grandeur of Uncle Sam.
Gift of America, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, I thee exalt,
Sodium nitrite, fat and salt,
The fair foundation of all I am.
Feast of obesity, beautiful Spam!

Ah, Ann. You speak to the heart. But what about Spam fritters?

Spam fritters
Are for stayers, not quitters.
Frittered Spam
Builds heroes who just don't give a damn.

To make a Spam fritter displays the same disregard for the sanctity of the immaculate original as roasting a swan or deep-frying a Mars bar.

I was at Merton College. I have eaten Swan off the Thames.

I am reminded of a truly godawful BBC Radio comedy of the late 1970s entitled The Spam Fritter Man. I've never eaten frittered spam, though we had the gruesome original at school all the time, second only in repellence to mentholated porridge.

Oh Adrian, Spam fritters, chips, mushy peas and HP Sauce with a crisp little Beaujolais. The hautest of cuisine!

What cynical critter
Would make a spam fritter?
How wrong has he gone
To have roasted a swan?
But the deeds of such fellows
Are mere peccadilloes
Compared to the dire
And depraved Mars bar fryer.

Do they really eat swans in the Oxbridge colleges, John? I thought that was just in 'Porterhouse Blue'!

Rob, I think they do, in the few ones allowed. I think it is only St Johns at Cambridge. There's a feast once a year, it isn't on the normal Sunday buffet. Normally it is more the spam end of the spectrum.

A spritely spam-fest, Ann. Tried a tin a couple of years ago in a fit of nostalgia and it was . . . not enjoyable.

A school friend used to be convulsed by advertisements, featuring a big-horned bovine, for something called UNOX. Has anybody eaten this, or was it a pre-war product existing only on long-lived enamel signs?