The Spam Musubi of Hawaii: Everyday Spiced Meat
Mōʻiliʻili Area is one of the multiple birthplaces of spam musubi. The spam musubi is recognized across groups and reminds people what it means to grow up as a resident townside in Mōʻiliʻili. Everyone used to eat spam musubis, off the bus from the pharmacy, and people would grab some of them. If Mōʻiliʻili had a dish to celebrate it would be a spam musubi as the symbol, because it was grown in the area as a casual food that people just knew. Just as people would have to go to work everyday, it was there for the working person everyday. Spam musubis are really enjoyable and nostalgic. Fried golden brown on a flat top where its crisp and juicy is one way, but another thing to think about is what is accompanying it as you take a bite. The whole crew matters with the sweet fruity drink things just get better.
There are some who never think of taking a bite of the meat right out of the can, where you see a jello like white on the outside. You then think “That doesn’t look appetizing, it's a no go”. But cook 'em with a crust and when it's warm on the inside it's a goto food. About 56 million musubis are eaten from people coming in and out of Hawaii, alongside the residential population in the middle of the Pacific.
But to know how things have come so far and understand the stories that travel back in time is necessary. The origin of the spam musubi goes back to the war times of world war II where it was brought over as war rations and nicknamed “spare animal parts”. It was a part of Austin Minnesota Cuisine, an American Luncheon Meat, “Spam” by Hormel Foods. War Ration, American breakfast meat, served at Japanese and Okinawan American Family Restaurants that left the Hawaii plantations. They started making Spam Musubis frying up the spam and placing it on rice and wrapping it in flame crisped seaweed in Hawaii. Something that was not really done in the North Central United states, steamed rice, and hibachi sauce.
Ground Spam... Bathed & Crisped
Being a Grind-mixed blend of shoulder and leg meat separated by white and red cuts makes it a butcher's art. From there it takes a salt bath of seasonings or a choice marinade. The lomi lomi (massage) is the love, the marinade is beautifying, and makes for a change in color and it is made to prepare the cuts to be part of delicious goodness. The color has to do with the magical liquid that is mixed in the meat and has to do with the blend. All sorts of recipes are flying around the place, but there are similarities of salt, sugar, and spices that sometimes have smoke flavoring, celery powder, vinegar, and even stock. Each musubi maker has their own recipe.
Convenience stores, gas stations, and super markets have their own as well. There is a particular meat marinade that is made for the bath that treats the pork that dips in as a king. A tucked away home with an aunty in McCully that has a secret of eight ingredients, these ingredients are not normally used by any other places in Hawaii that people have recalled from the old days. The meat bath tans the meat slightly, it’s sort of darker from the seasonings and the flavor of the Hawaii water. The secret ingredients can be used as a bath for the meat or a marinade for the spams in a can: Sake, Crushed Sugar Cane Stalk, Mirin, Toasted sesame seeds, Fresh ginger, crushed Garlic, Alaea Salt, and a special seasoning-liquid. Some want a taste of ham and add a little shoyu and cloves.
To get a home ground spam there are a few steps that need to be taken like grinding the meat cuts several times with added liquid where it appears as a shaped meat with no crumbly appearance, but a solid shape. The right amount of pork fat is added to the mixture as well as the desired red meat to white fatty meat ratio to provide a fat and a better flavor. A good spam is cooked on a flat top grill as it was done in the old diners in the olden days and ideally with a bit of fire that gives it a smoky-char flavor of high-heat. Cooking a spam at high heat is harder, because it has to slowly cook until the inside is just right. Then comes the flame that burns the outside a bit and that is when a great cook, a spam master, can control the heat.
Cooking the Right Spam Musubi
The Spam Musubi, sustains the humble who have worked so hard for the islands. Each Spam Musubi has its own particular charm, each Spam Musubi has its own character, as it is not the same as other spam musubi. There are many musubis in Hawaii and even other places around the world, but those are other kinds of spam musubi, but the ones made in Hawaii get the rice mold out and shape like none other as going through the musubi motions. While those who took care of the people made it look easy, it is because they are already good at it, because it can be challenging for those who have never made one before.
The amount of rice traditionally is considered small and people add more for moderate amounts of rice and if there is plenty of rice it could be hard to taste the spam with all the rice. The preparation calls for white, medium-grain, Calrose rice that is shaped into a rectangular block form. Traditionally it has been mixed in a large bowl and a wooden paddle. There are many places that are musubi shops that don’t make the rice good or don’t know how to choose good rice, so not all musubis are good. Everybody thinks that their spam musubis are the best and they think they know the best way to make them, so while there are so many places to get a musubi they are not all tasty. The wrong kind of rice, dry rice, or overly wet rice can ruin the whole musubi.
Cutting the meat has a small bit of technique to it. The spam might be sliced at a strange angle, they might cut their hands, and they might not know the right size. It is a challenge to just make sure that the cuts are done the same and proportionate to the rice they are wanting. The right pan is needed for the right way to cook the meat, which can be tricky. The thinner the slice the faster it cooks and it is very-crispy. A thicker slice cooks in the middle slower and needs a low heat first and then the high heat for the crisp. When people taste the cooking of a fresh musubi it is different than when it is sitting in the heater all soggy and is a different sort of spam musubi than the classic. It must be cooked correctly, or else it has a bland, soft meatiness, and is spongy, which makes it not taste the way it was intended. It doesn’t taste cooked, it doesn’t taste soggy, it tastes raw.
When people walk in and grab a spam musubi from the warmer it has been sitting and it has its own character, as does a musubi made for a sports game that has been sitting for awhile, but a fresh musubi can change the way a person feels about how they eat a musubi. Fresh spam musubi is a bit more crispy, the nori has a little chew and crisp in itself, and the rice has much more texture. It is like three good friends that get together to talk story, they make a good group. There are a lot of things that affect the taste like the spam musubi has to have a certain style to it from whos making them, the way the person treats the eater, and that relationship enhances the taste somehow.
Eating Spam Musubi
It is common for people to have a great experience eating while standing up, because there are plenty of places to go and a craving can be fulfilled while doing something else. There use to be famous musubi shops that were part of an okazuya with traditional spam musubis. Many of which became quite famous and they used to be all over Hawaii with people who were interested in trying them from all over the country and other countries to try the Hawaii okazuya musubis. They would be in neighborhoods and a must go to stop for foodies that had at one point its own musubi clientele that stuck around, not exploring other places for musubi, and loyal to the place until it closes down from leases growing more and more expensive.
There are people who have been making spam musubis for years and that includes what they see as the three groups of spam musubi. The “Proto-Spam Musubi” that is a a Japanese Triangle onigiri, but much larger and with spam filling, the “Proper Spam Musubi” with the seaweed wrapped in the middle a purist musubi, then they would talk about the “Sandwich Spam Musubi” where the spam is in the middle of a seaweed-wrap. There are of course new ways of making musubi and with many great foods brings great controversy. Some may say recipes should not be tampered with. Purists will say that is not a spam musubi and reject it as a new way of doing things. Foodies will not reject it in light of the new ways of doing things, or the old that is new again, because it is the story of how many dishes in Hawaii had originated.
People will say they must be one way or another, a musubi that is alive can’t stop moving and it reinvents itself. Food has no rules as people eat what they like and that is why people will decide to make something to eat that is similar and yet the color and taste could be completely different and be unique, part of the evolution of the musubi. The recipe comes from one area and it can be given new life where it is being eaten. Each person has their own recipe and they all have variations to the recipe that a person will adopt as their own. Musubis are unlike each other, but there's something in common, which is the tradition of musubi making as some stay in the past and some step forward.
Bonding through Musubi
A family pop up place that started as a real small place and run as a family lunch shop where the musubis are a part of many peoples order and with catering the business is growing. The way that they are made is at a okazuya, it has a proper heating table, the meat is well sliced and the rice is the right amount to be dipped that goes well with a pog (drink), which might have you coming back for another one from the tray. It is the musubi that people crave and the sleepy nights the store goes to bed last too long at times, but people find it and it becomes a favorite. The evolving menu is what people in-the-know come for and they bring a friend after the beach to get something to eat. Loyalty to certain okazuya has something to do with its familiarity and the family feel that creates bonds in a relationship based on treatment of one another and that feeling of belonging. That relationship is based on the favorites and once a person eats them they go for other more daring musubi. A spam musubi that is tasty will have someone ordering it casually, but then someone recommends them the california roll musubi and it tastes clean, a stranger says to try the teri chicken musubi and its great and it begins. In the day of social media it guides people there, but the best is when people talk story and find out what is delicious to your palate.
In Hilo it is known and the okazuya has snobby purist musubi enthusiasts that regard all the different variations as the musubi portion of it being bad, but with the long line of people getting the musubi it contradicts the statement. The argument itself makes people polarized of loving them or hating them and the many in between who see the place for the people and for the food and to not dumb it down to a disagreement of good vs evil. The portions are limited because there is a limited supply as shown on their sing. Many of the cars are looking for a place to park as they have come to enjoy the food there and no matter how much they prepare there are customers who are ready to get their special food. People come early when they want their particular menu items and they are used to doing it, even if its raining, or really hot they still come depending on how bad the craving is. Asami’s Kitchen brings people together and has them coming together for something delicious, something filling, and something that doesn’t care where the person comes from as long as they are there to eat. The feeling of the authentic doesn’t come at any price of a fruit punch or an expensive cocktail, but from the foodie experience.
Grabbing some grinds after the beach is very much a cultural thing where you get all tired after being pounded by the waves and then going off to a place to eat is the finish. The feeling of being tired after the time in the water, that goes away after drinking something and eating musubis before heading off to work or to bed for some. When people are hungry they can tend to overdo it and express themselves by talking and then eating and is part of the Hawaii behavior that people do when having a rest with the quality time being implied. It is something that people are able to experience when they bite into a musubi and feel the texture, the flavoring, the crunch of the seaweed, the added seasonings, and the styling of it is what those in Hawaii look for in a musubi. It's about connecting people to do an activity and then sharing a time that is so valuable to each person and hopefully connecting their hearts. Musubi Shops and Okazuya with a Musubi Counter allow for those encounters to happen. Remembering the first time a person shared a musubi will always be there, comforting those who are battered, passifying those who are hangry, and be an experience that stays with you.
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