Spam I Am My ancestors cooked with Spam out of necessity. Now, it's a prized ingredient in my pantry.

AFTER THE LONG, LANGUID SUMMERS I spent in Waipahu, Hawai'i, between semesters of college on the mainland, my grandma and I had a series of prescribed rituals before she'd put me on the plane.

- Kiki Aranita

Two or three days before I packed my bags, she would start gathering things from Longs Drugs or Don Quijote: foil bags of Lion Coffee, flat cardboard boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, and cans of Spam (25% less sodium—our family's preferred type) on sale for $1.99 or less.

“It’s cheaper here!” she would exclaim. “You pay $5 on the mainland!” It was true, despite Spam being produced in Minnesota and Iowa. This fact was constantly shocking to my family in Hawai‘i, who could not fathom why I would choose to live in places with such cold weather and such expensive Spam. Made of highly processed pork shoulder and imported to the islands (along with 85 to 90% of Hawai‘i’s food supply), the sweet and salty canned lunch meat got sent back to the mainland with me, slipped into my luggage as an expression of my grandma’s love.

Spam became a staple in Hawai‘i during World War II, when the U.S. military placed Japanese Americans—a community that built Hawai‘i’s deep-sea fishing industry—in incarceration camps. With a sudden lack of fish to eat, people came to subsist on imported canned foods like Spam and Vienna sausage. Even after the camps closed and fish became accessible once again, the canned meats stuck around. Today, they’re pantry staples and beloved comfort foods.