JUST GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME FRIED CHICKEN [97]

It may have been the use of “chaos,” “crisis,” and even “famine” in headlines, but it was definitely when Tower Hamlets Police, which patrols the traditional East End of London, used Twitter to tell people to stop calling them, while using the hashtag #KFCCrisis.

The short version of this story is that KFC, which hasn’t called itself Kentucky Fried Chicken since 1991, has moved the distribution of product to its restaurants from Bidvest to DHL, and to say it has been far from seamless may still be downplaying things: there have been pictures of crying children and angry mothers by locked doors to closed stores, with as many as three quarters of the near nine hundred branches being forced to close until stock came back, while another person was quoted to say, nonchalantly, “I guess I’ll have to go somewhere else.” Apparently, the GMB union warned KFC about this, as Burger King had the same problem in 2012, when they moved their distribution to DHL, but it looks like flame-grilled burgers did not capture the British imagination quite so much.

I confess to being bemused by this story, as I rarely eat at KFC, despite two branches being located in my home town – I prefer McDonalds or Subway, and we have one each of them too. I have walked past a different branch of Subway that remained open despite having no bread, and this was before they began pushing their salad bowls. Perhaps the sudden inability of prospective customers to act upon their impulse as they expected, which is the foundation of the business model for a fast food restaurant, is what led to the inordinate amount of attention this situation has received. However, when you factor in how the current diet of news stories consist of Brexit, things that Donald Trump said on Twitter, and accusations of sexual assault, you begin to see how important fried chicken can be as a momentary diversion.

In the absence of my own opinion, I did wonder what Colonel Sanders would think of this. Unlike Ronald McDonald, KFC had a real, breathing, salaried brand ambassador, who created the “secret blend of herbs and spices,” cooked by pressure frying instead of pan frying, in 1940, before selling the franchise, except for the Canadian division, in 1963 for $2 million. He also had cameo appearances in films with titles like “Hell’s Blooody Devils” and “Blast-Off Girls,” while remaining close to a bucket or a grill.  I make this point because when the face above the door, and on the buckets, starts telling you that the gravy tastes like wallpaper paste, in addition to pushing food he thought unpalatable onto the floor when visiting some restaurants, you may have a situation where a restaurant sues its mascot. The libel suit brought by KFC was ultimately unsuccessful but, then again, Harland Sanders had practiced law in Little Rock, Arkansas, as one of its many jobs before entering the restaurant business – a part of me still hopes he sought legal advice from Mayor McCheese.

Once all branches of KFC have reopened, it may be worth pushing their other menu options, as they appear to have rice dishes too. This year has already seen branches of the Wetherspoon pub chain have no steak on Steak Night, an incident that ultimately collapsed the distributor involved. Have something else instead, for there will always be a next time.

LOVELY SPAM, WONDERFUL SPAM [84]

Before you even get to eating it, there is much to be said about Spam. What began with the surprise of my winning a tin of Spam, after correctly answering all the questions in a 1940s-inspired charity quiz at work, has become an odyssey of changing uses, changing meanings, and changing diets.

The most likely meaning of the word “Spam” is “Shoulder of Pork and Ham,” as the tinned meat itself, made by Hormel since 1937, was introduced as a way of using a surplus of pork shoulder, an unpopular cut, built up by the company. Even though the name was coined in a competition, with Ken Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel executive, winning $100, Hormel insist that the true meaning of SPAM, which they always refer with full capitals, is only known by a select group of executives, as if it were Colonel Sanders’ secret blend of herbs and spices.

Monty Python changed the meaning of the word “spam” in two ways, although Hormel only subscribe to one of these. In the United States, Sir Can-a-Lot has graced Spam packaging since 2012, in a reference to “Spamalot,” the musical version of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – “Spamalot” was one of a number of titles tested by Eric Idle, coming from the “Holy Grail” lyric, “we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot,” and audiences identified with it the most.

However, Sir Can-a-Lot’s phrase, “Glorious SPAM,” is in reference to the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” café sketch from the show’s second series, where Mr & Mrs Bun, for that is their names, are given menu options that contain an increasingly psychotic amount of Spam. The reason there are Vikings in the café, as shown in the later part of the sketch normally cut for compilations, is they have invaded the Green Midget café in Bromley specifically for the Spam… before the historian succumbs to repeating “Spam” over and over again, which is continued into the closing credits, with “Spam” inserted into cast and crew names, possibly inspiring the later Halloween episodes of “The Simpsons.”

The overtaking of normal speech by the same word, repeated over and over again, has directly led to “spamming” being the word for targeted junk e-mails and the like. This use came from the user groups and chat rooms, like Usenet and CompuServe, that populated the early internet, where if someone posted something you didn’t like, you had to type something to scroll it off the screen, so typing the same word, like “spam,” became a noted practice – it almost sounds like “spam” was used the way people say “fake news” today, drowning out what they consider to be disagreeable. However, the same practice also led to others realising they could post obstructive chain letters, like 1988’s MAKE.MONEY.FAST, leading to the spam e-mails of today.

Hormel have disparaged “spamming,” as it twists the meaning of their trademark, but “spam” has been used as a synonym for tinned meat, similar to how “hoover” is used for all vacuum cleaners in the UK. Spam is ingrained in the wartime rationing history of the UK: in 1945, when twenty points per person per week were given for meat, a pound tin of Spam was lowered from 16 to 8 points to get more people to try it, after rejecting unrationed meat like whale and snoek, but the more popular pound tin of salmon was increased from 16 to 24 points to force this further, although you were allowed to save up your points.

The UK did come around to Spam, with fritters being a national favourite, but Hawaii have absorbed it into their culture as much as Britain cannot be separated from baked beans - a popular lunch and snack dish is the sushi-derived Spam musubi, and Spam is sold in breakfast platters by both McDonalds and Burger King. I like the idea of the musubi, which is sticky rice, topped with grilled Spam, and wrapped with seaweed, but will I cook it myself? Perhaps.