SPAM mania: You can’t stop it.

Friday, June 30, 2000

SPAM mania: You can’t stop it. You can only contain it.

On Saturday, it will be the 10th anniversary of the SPAM Jam celebration in Austin.

From dawn to dusk, the blue and yellow colors will dominate the East Side Lake Park area.

Crowds in excess of 20,000 people will celebrate the only canned luncheon meat to be credited with saving Okinawa after World War II.

That’s what Chyomi Sumida claims SPAM did. The Okinawa reporter recently wrote that shortly after U.S. forces occupied the land, about 4,000 Okinawa residents were herded into a refugee camp where SPAM became the most popular ration.

"The taste of SPAM penetrated into the body and heart of the people," the reporter quoted refugee camp survivor Sumiko Kinjo as saying.

Tell us about it.

SPAM penetrated the bodies and hearts of millions around the world until it has become a kind of cult.

Witness the official SPAM Fan Club T-shirt that is emblazoned with the words: "I think therefore I SPAM."

On Saturday, the winner of a SPAM cookoff on the island of Guam is coming to Austin.

John Anderson, a popular radio talk-show host in Guam, will return for live broadcasts to SPAMnatics back home.

Bob Brubaker of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, has competed in 20 triathalons. Brubaker has finished among the top third in five different "Iron Man" competitions.

What does he attribute his endurance and success to? Answer: Smoke-flavored SPAM eaten before each competition.

Brubaker is coming to Austin Saturday to run in the 5-mile run and eat SPAM, of course, in the town where it was born and is made today.

In honor of the 10th anniversary of SPAM Jam, the SPAMETTES singing group will exhibit new costumes when they serenade the crowds Saturday at East Side Lake.

InSynque – not to be confused with another group featuring cute teen-age boys with a name that sounds the same – also will entertain.

Warning: If you wake up the morning after SPAM Jam, humming "SPAMMY, SPAMMY! How I love you, dear old SPAMMY," you stayed too long at the celebration or ate too much SPAM.

Paulette Cummings and her crew will be selling official SPAM merchandise.

Cummings and friends are the only authorized dealers of SPAM merchandise at the celebration. Accept no substitute caps, T-shirts, boxer shorts and dozens of other items, including the ever-popular sandals that leave an imprint of you-know-what in the sand.

‘Queen of SPAM’ visits

There is also a new addition to the SPAM hall of fame: Jone Schumacher.

That’s right: Jone Schumacher, winner of a national SPAM recipe contest for her Cajun Coconut SPAM Fritters.

Schumacher and her husband Arthur will come to Austin all the way from Chapin, Ill.

Only two weeks ago, she visited the Mall of America for an all-expenses paid shopping spree, her prize for winning the recipe contest.

Unfortunately, her Cajun Coconut SPAM Fritters’ recipe missed the deadline for Saturday’s recipe contest in Austin.

Schumacher has been entering recipes in the Illinois State Fair for 15 years. For the last 10 years, she has "experimented" with SPAM, starting with a vegetable casserole and moving into Cajun sauce and coconuts most recently.

"I made a batter to start with," Schumacher recalled, "but to tell the truth it really tasted pretty bland, so I looked in the cupboard at home for something to spice it up and there was the Cajun sauce."

The rest, as they say, is history.

Not only did her husband like it, but so did her five children.

"My husband liked it and when the kids said they liked it, too, I knew I had something, because they are so fussy and particular about what I cook," she said.

Schumacher also confessed that other choices were to include sweet-and-sour sauce in the batter or honey mustard.

If it weren’t for a jar of Cajun sauce in the Schumacher family’s kitchen cupboards, who knows what Sweet-and-Sour Coconut SPAM Fritters or Honey Mustard Coconut SPAM Fritters would have tasted like?

Schumacher is a registered nurse who works for the Morgan County Women-Infants-Children Program in Jacksonville, Ill.

Thus, she can be considered an expert on nutrition and diet.

"I’m really impressed with Hormel Foods Corp.’s attention to nutrition in all their foods," she said. "This whole SPAM mania business really intrigues me, too. Not only does Hormel Foods feed us, but they entertain us, too."

Schumacher is making a pilgrimage to the birthplace of SPAM to see just how the canned luncheon meat can entertain an entire city for a Saturday in the summertime.