First of all, let’s break it down into syllables. “Mu” rhymes with “two” and “subi” rhymes with “Scooby”. Now you won’t roll into some local joint the next time you are on Oahu and ask for “Moo-soooo-bee”. OK, now that we can say it, let’s learn to love it. Most people around the world either hate Spam or don’t know/want to know that it exists. Things are different in Hawaii. Hawaiians love Spam. They love it so much that when it goes on sale at Vons, there’s a limit to how many cans one can purchase. When I was a child, I remember opening my grandparents’ pantry and seeing Spam stacked higher than I could reach. Spam has a bad rep for being unhealthy…OK, it’s not a salad but if you look at the ingredients, Spam only has 7. There’s not many foods these days with only 7 ingredients. Damn, hot dogs have like 47 things mixed in…nasty. If you don’t like Spam, you probably never cooked it right. There’s a way to prepare it that actually make it taste right. Don’t go and try hooking up one of those wack recipes that tells you to plop a cold brick of Spam on shredded lettuce and drop cubed pineapples on top…gag. Asking a Hawaiian works but getting a legit recipe can be tough cuz it’ll look like this…
Try:
cook rice (da sticky kine),
make 'em into one spam shaped block about 1"-2" high,
t'row one slice fried spam on top, and wrap da buggah wit' nori.
Da only hints I can 'tink of is,
try wet yo' hands and put little bit salt on top when you stay making da musubi shape wit' da hot rice,
and toas' da nori little bit first.
Hints from uddah peepo':
Use da spam can and use fo mold for da rice.
Den da slice of spam goin' fit perfect on top.
If you can fin' furikake out dea, mix it in da rice firs.
Confusing huh? I’ll break it down in good Los Angeles English for you.
Now that we understand it, let’s learn to prepare it. First of all, don’t be all scared when the brick of grey meat plops out of the can. This is what stops most peeps in their tracks. I mean, damn, look at chicken, or shellfish, or fish before you cook it…it all looks pretty nasty but we have conditioned ourselves into thinking that it’s beautiful. Before you start messing with the Spam, hook yourself up with a pot of steamed Japanese-style rice. As it’s cooling, mix in a few spoons of rice vinegar and some salt. Slice your new friend, Spam into slices and fry them up with some soy sauce, sugar and whatever else you have around. Oyster sauce, sesame seeds, onion slices, bell pepper slices, furikake (sesame seed and seaweed mix that you can find at the Japanese market), leftover peppers from Papa John’s, etc.
Turn ‘em once or twice until browned but not burned.
Next, put a layer of rice into a rectangle sushi press
(you can get these wonderful things at the Japanese market too), press it, follow with a layer of Spam,
press and then another layer of Rice and guess what…..press.
Remove the outside edges of the press and wrap your naked musubi in nori (pronounced noh-rhi).
Cut the whole thing in half into 2 musubis. Go ahead and eat it now or wrap it in plastic wrap and pretend like you just bought it from 7-11 in Waipahu.
Keep in mind that this is super-casual food. It was never intended to look pretty or be presentable…it’s supposed to be eaten and taste good. As with most modern Hawaiian food, tradition only goes as far as what the last person did before you so make up your own style and go with it.
Aloha.
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