Having fun with Two-Can Spam: “Vietnamese Style” Spam

No, not a certain avian purveyor of artificially flavored corn circles, but two cans of that mechanically processed pork product.

So why Spam for this post? A number of reasons. One, I felt it’s been a while since I posted on r/asianeats, and this is… vaguely Asian, since I think my family is one of the few that does it this way (and since we’re Vietnamese that automatically qualifies it as Asian right?) And secondly because it is “boring to great” week on r/52weeksofcooking, and Spam was listed right there as a boring food.

I’m not sure what h3ather meant when she said that spam was boring. Don’t get me wrong, I know spam has an extremely large and outspoken contingent of detractors, and there’s a lot of negative adjectives that can be applied to it, but boring would not be the first word I applied to it. Since I actually like Spam, I will not repeat those words here.

Oh yeah, before I forget, nobody in my household eats a can of spam over a kitchen sink. We have however eaten it with a pocketknife on one of the sandy shores at Yosemite, along with baguette. After a long day of hiking, eating it like that in the shade is just wonderful. But I digress.

So, Vietnamese style spam, what is that exactly? It’s actually two dishes actually that go well with rice. Here’s some of the stuff you’ll need for both. Two cans of spam (well, one will do really) cabbage, onion, a red chili, garlic. You will also need a big of fish sauce. And that automatically ups the “Vietnameseness” of any dish. Well, it could also up the Thai-ness, Phillipinesness or Cambodeliciousness of a dish as well.

But, I’m Vietnamese, so I’ll call this Vietnamese-style Spam. 

Post-Apocalyptic Dining: Creative Use of Rations for Improving Morale and Vitality, Celebration Combination Designation #23.

Foreword: Now, some of you might be wondering to yourself what on earth this post is about. Since when did Cast Iron Therapy become a post apocalyptic survival themed blog? For those of you who are thinking to yourself, thank goodness, it’s about time he cracked and started writing something really interesting, I’ve got bad news for you, this is probably just a one shot deal (unless response is strangely huge and outspoken in favor of spots like this).

The good news is that this post is dedicated to Filamena Young and David Hill’s latest project, desktop roleplaying game Flatpack: Fix the Future with a unique “Optimistic Apocalyptic” theme. The beta looks great and I can’t wait to see the final product.

David and Filamena are currently raising funds on Kickstarter right now, and I’m recommending you go check it out. I’ve contributed, not only because it looks like a worthy and awesome game, but also because you get some AWESOME SWAG too. I know they’ve raised what they needed, but if we can get to the next milestone we’ll get even more stuff!

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, prepare yourself (perhaps with alcohol) for my first foray into an “in character” post. With luck it won’t make you want to bash your head in. Now, please forget all this and enjoy the post.

Special credit to Jeremy Kostiew of Mighty Nightgaunt for his splendid illustration.

***

On Xenta Gotida’s night table a small bound sheaf of papers greeted her eyes in the dim light. Flicking on her headlamp, she sighed as she picked it up and read the note tacked beside it. Her father, already off on his journey. Smirking ruefully at his expected disappearance before her journey, she glanced quickly at the cover, titled “A Senior Pot Slinger’s Notes to a Wayward Daughter.”

With a carefulness that betrayed her fondness for her father, she opened the makeshift booklet and began to read the first few pages…