I have a long history with Spam. Longer than any recovering vegetarian with no real ties to Hormel Foods probably should. It's meat with worldwide popularity and a multi-year shelf life, cooked within its own rounded can that, when covered in that famous blue-and-yellow label, qualifies as Americana. To me, that's fascinating stuff.
I once visited Austin, Minn., to attend the old Spam Jam celebration — whose dissolution I still mourn — where I tried Spam for the first time. (I'm an active admirer but a rare eater, though I do usually keep a can on hand for decorative purposes.) I've been to both former Spam museums, so when I heard Hormel was opening a new one in downtown Austin, I made plans.
After I told my kids, Roy and Vera (6 and 4 respectively), that we were going on a road trip to see the new Spam Museum, they said, "Yay! What's Spam?" In my own home. How had I been so neglectful? Luckily, we were that very morning headed to the best spot in the entire world to rectify our little situation.
The museum's grand opening isn't until July 29, part of Hormel's 125th anniversary celebration, but Spam fans have been visiting since the soft opening in April. When we arrive on a Friday morning, it's busy but not packed, and we're immediately welcomed by a SPAMbassador (actual term).
The museum is free, and the wide-open 14,000-square-foot space is easy to dive right into. The kids beeline for the International Market, with stands highlighting the Spam experience in different countries. Monty Python's famous tribute plays on a loop in the English pub. In the Philippines, Roy and Vera take turns on a touchscreen that lets you color-customize a Jeepney, popular public transport there. I enter my e-mail address to receive links to my kids' works. For the record, I get them and only them. No ensuing, um, spam.
At the center of the museum, a cluster of four mini Spam assembly lines, with beanbag lumps of pretend meat, fake cooking machines and stretchy labels, invites competition. We start our timer to see how fast we can put together eight cans, then try to beat our own record. Next to us, things get heated between some grown men over a single can's assembly. "Twenty-three seconds! Yes!" "Fifteen seconds, loser!"
In the play area, the kids climb and slide, then fiddle around in a fully outfitted pint-sized farmhouse kitchen. I join a grandpa at the picnic table, on cushioned grass-colored flooring in front of an Adam Turman farm-themed mural. Our little charges serve an elaborate fake-food feast — a plastic turkey sprinkled in rubber French fries, wooden sushi, a variety of grill-marked simulated meats.
There are interactive history displays, recipe kiosks, puzzles, Spam art and artifacts, lots of Instagram-friendly backdrops (How Many Spam Cans Tall Are You?) and, of course a suggested hashtag (#SPAMselfie). The kids would've happily stayed longer. But I'm getting hungry for not-plastic food, so I herd them toward the gift shop.
