SPAM and other foods - any hate? :)

Janne

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This is not a thread about the delicious food we like to eat while out and enjoying Mother Nature.
This is about which foods we do NOT like!

Personally, I love canned food. But, SPAM...... Who with a sound mind invented that?
And how is it made????
From which part of the pig, to get that lovely colour, ruberriness and 'interesting' taste?
I eat Pork Tails ( salted) in Jamaican cuisine. I eat Pigs Head. I eat Pigs trotters.
Delicious. No way SPAM is made from those!
Skin?

SPAM has several flavours. The last one I had was the worst. SPAM Tocino. It is a flavor developed for the Filippines. Sickly sweet, with a hint of something weird. Garbage smoke? Plus extra salt I think.

What is the food you never will take with you out?
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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I take outdoor living and travelling as the best possible excuse to feed myself all kinds of tasty delicacies.
Things like caviar which I would never buy at home even if our dump of a grocery store would stock that.
But
I always pack a medium old pill bottle of brown sugar and cinnamon. Another small pill bottle of mint.
Away in the back are 2 tins of SPAM and a tin of Hereford Corned Beef.
Four weeks and all fish across the whole Pacific all taste the same as tree bark.
There is not enough curry powder and mango chutney in the whole world to change that.
 

Sundowner

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Jan 21, 2013
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I don't hate Spam but it would never be my choice to take with me into the woods. I'd rather have a venison steak or such like. If thats not possible, there are always sausages steaks or similar. For prolonged periods in the woods one obviously needs some tinned food. I think pate, sardines, terrines or (at a stretch for me) possibly beans. All these can be eaten with a savoury bannock. Hard cooking chorizo or salamis are always a good choice in my book. Spam I will eat when I'm starving and there are no other foods available :)
 
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John Fenna

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Having subsisted on tinned "Tuna Slime in Heavy Engine Oil" and "Corned Beef Fat" - well actually tinned Tuna and Corned Beef designed for the fat loving Pacific Island market - while leading a canoe Exped for Raleigh Int in Ghana I just cannot stand tinned tuna or Corned Beef...
I cannot stand the smell of straight Gin - having got messy drunk on it in my youth - but love Sloe Gin.....
Just by way of balance - I cannot abide tripe... a healthy, tasty, fresh meat meal, they tell me.... Grim rubbery yeuch IMHO!
 

Robson Valley

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John Fenna understands the tinned tuna ( fit for cats) and the corned beef.
Corned beef hash and sauerkraut isn't too bad but not too often.

What I said: take really good food on a camping trip. Eat the best.
Make a performance out of the meal. 2 burners, 2 stoves, etc.
Taste treats for yourself. Become a bannock crafter of great skill.
 

Janne

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I had a really, really nice can of tuna ( made in Canada) the other day.

One of my patients in UK was a quality controller for a major UK canned tuna (food) brand.

He had to check on site ( S.E. Asia, various countries) that the tuna used was not to decomposed.

He did not eat canned tuna himself.
 

Janne

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Corned beef - some really nice brands out there. If you can, get one made in New Zealand called Palm.
Excellent.

Me Fenna, interesting about the fatty cans.
Many international canned meats/fish made for the Jamaican market are very fatty too. Plus many Jamaican made cand have more sugar that a similar Eutopean product.

Filipino cans are very sugary too.

I like to try foods from various countries.
 

John Fenna

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I much prefer trying local foods when I visit new places, than trying tinned rubbish anywhere (though I love Bacon Grill) - we were not allowed to buy local food from the markets in Ghana as there was so little for the locals the exped would have cleaned out the available supplies and left the locals short!
In Thailand we did not even take stoves but ate local meals everywhere we went - and no one went sick until I was convinced by an American staff member of that exped to try a Mexican restaurant in one of the Thai cities we visited....
Laughing Cow "cheese" is another item I struggle to view as food as it was the only thing that came close to edible in the rations we were given on the Ghana exped ... "Bean Feast" soy protein meals give me such bad wind that I am crippled with pain - another ration element that I will not ever eat again!
And I would rather eat a microwave burger than Tofu!
 
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Tripe is the one for me it is ^&&*&%^% nasty! as for not liking spam.........Janne! I thought I knew you! but now........I don't know if I can ever speak with you again :p:D
 

Robson Valley

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Liver is OK with lots of bacon and lots of onion. I can make a very good live pate'.
Fried Spam is good with brown sugar and cinnamon.
So is making up alternative obscene names for it.
Actually, it's mostly pure'd and minced genitalia.

Live for months off the grid and 40+ miles from the nearest road.
Either portage the bad rapids or hope you can score a float plane to get out.
Spam is good.
 
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Janne

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Feb 10, 2016
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Tripe is the one for me it is ^&&*&%^% nasty! as for not liking spam.........Janne! I thought I knew you! but now........I don't know if I can ever speak with you again :p:D

I am weird. Yes, you know that!
But now you will think I am even weirder, and have a super weird family.

We like liver ( beef, lamb, reindeer), kidneys ( beef, lamb) and tripe (beef).

I would convert your tastes if you tasted my tripe Pörkölt ( tripe goulash outside Hungary)

Tripe has to be cooked a certain way to taste nice.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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.....Personally, I love canned food. But, SPAM...... Who with a sound mind invented that?
And how is it made????
From which part of the pig, to get that lovely colour, ruberriness and 'interesting' taste?.....

.....So is making up alternative obscene names for it.
Actually, it's mostly pure'd and minced genitalia.....

Actually true Spam (there are several other brands out there besides Spam) is made from 100% pork shoulder and has been since before the start of WWII. When you're a company the size of Hormel you can buy several 100s of tons a month for pennies a pound. The integrity of the brand name is worth far more than any savings from using urban myth sources of meat (just like brand name hot dogs) It's also the food of the gods.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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Foods I don't like? That's depends. If it's open to all foods I'm not fond of tofu but I will eat it. Kalamari is something I despise in most forms but in Hawaii they sell it dried in bags like we're all used to buying crisps and I kinda like that. I don't like beets, kidneys, or bland foods (everything's better with some combination of salt, sugar, or spicy heat----preferably lots of it)

If we limit it to only foods we take to the outdoors it gets harder to find something I don't like. The truth is if we don't like it, we don't take it.
 

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