Spam, glorious Spam

Smot this with your glazzies: Spam, grapes, peas and onions. My mailbox was lit. and fig. spammed with this monstrosity. Bonus points for the immediate preparation time; (Like the poser asked of Ned Flanders by Homer: Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that He Himself could not eat it?) only Yahweh can make it faster. And make it taste delicious, presumably:

" VINEYARD SPAM SALAD

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Salads

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
2/3 c Mayonnaise or salad dressing
1 tb Lime juice
1 t Dry mustard
2 c Seedless grapes
1 c Peapods, cut in half
1/2 c Thinly sliced red onion

In skillet, saute SPAM over high heat 2 minutes,
stirring constantly; set aside. In small bowl, combine
mayonnaise, lime juice, and dry mustard. In large
bowl, combine grapes, SPAM, peapods, and onion. Tos (sic)
with mayonnaise mixture. Cover and chill 1 hour."

I've always wanted to insert (sic) into somebody else's text. It strikes me as unutterably smug.

Typing “vineyard spam salad” into Google returns 7,540,000 results, which aptly illustrates how nefarious Search Engine Optimisation and content appropriation is. Other than a smattering of why have I been sent this recipe? – type peevishness, all the other links appear to return the recipe verbatim, which serves no purpose other than clogging up the arteries of the internet with spam.

I have also decided to strike from my bookmarks any recipe aggregator site that actually lists this recipe. I'm quite sure none of them have actually kitchen tested this bad boy, and are essentially untrustworthy whores.

I set out to make this salad, but unfortunately we live in an erstwhile food desert. Long Island City attracts yuppies, and yuppies don't eat spam. Even when they're camping in the Ozarks. The local victual repository, The Food Cellar, prides itself in only selling organic and quality noshage. Which is why oranges cost a dollar each. In addition to being deprived of spam, I'm flirting with scurvy. 

Before I moved to NY, I imagined that the average Manhattanite survives on a diet of coffee, macrobiotic salads, foraged microherbs, ortolan eggs, Korean/Kabbalah fusion truck food and so forth. I'm not entirely disabused of this notion. Luckily, I'm a stroll away from both Green Point and Astoria, home respectively to Polish and Greek communities, and handsomely furnished with greengrocers and cheap supermarkets. I secured a tin of low sodium Spam with ease.

I may look like a yuppie, but I don't eat like one. I like spam, luncheonmeat, bully beef, Shippams potted beef, mechanically reclaimed snoutwurst, the late night doner kebab. All are grist to my maw. The more dubious the provenance, the more likely I am to enjoy it. Why does this recipe curl my lip, then? Is it the egregious quantity of mayonnaise, the dubious use of the word Vineyard due to the inclusion of grapes, or the sneaky way Hormel, the makers of spam, market the product?

I can begrudgingly attest that Vineyard Spam Salad is moderately tasty. I deviated from the recipe in 3 ways: I used low sodium Spam, I cut the mayonnaise with a good dollop of crème fraiche, and I neglected to chill for the instructed hour. Mrs FAI, who loathes mayonnaise as a dressing (she only ever eats it with frites), pronounced it “okay”, and my mother-in-law adjudged it “delicious”. The saltiness of the spam complemented the sweetness of the grapes and the raw snow peas provided a welcome crunch. The sauce was tangy but there was too much of it. You can halve the mayonnaise with confidence.

Paula Deen would be proud.