Sandwich Tribunal Presents: Pumpkin Spice, Pumpkin Rice

Two years ago, Hormel released what was destined to be briefly considered the most horrific food crime ever visited upon mankind. I am speaking of course about Pumpkin Spice SPAM. Reviews were not universally opposed, though. Food & Wine suggested that it could be used for making gingerbread villages. One taste tester at The Daily Meal gushed that “It wasn’t as bad as I expected!” The greatest food writer and celebrity chef of all time–my friend Dennis–made a Pumpkin Spice SPAM Latte out of it, which he promptly and cheerfully poured into the incorrect orifice.

We here at the Tribunal are not the Big Media hotshots that some of these other outlets are. Hormel was not beating a path to our door to get us to review this product, and as it sold out within a few hours of its release, we did not expect to ever get to try it.

Until we did.

Ebay exists, folks, and if you are of a mind to pay between 10x and 50x what a can of SPAM retails for, you too can get your can of Pumpkin Spice SPAM. I finally got around to buying myself a can–it only cost me around $30 plus shipping–and I had high hopes for this product. After all, I made Pumpkin Spice Bologna last year and it was delicious–surely Hormel would be able to top me.

I finally came up with a fittingly unique use for the Pumpkin Spice SPAM and made the following video. Why don’t you take a look? You know you want to see what I did.

Yes, I made Pumpkin Spice SPAM Musubi, with riced pumpkin in place of sushi rice. And while I’ll defend the idea of that to the death, the actual outcome was not great. Mostly because Pumpkin Spice SPAM is not great. I did not get the same impressions from it that those early reviews did. It is highly possible that the volatile aromatic compounds that make pumpkin spice pleasant do not age as well as a cured mixture of pork shoulder and ham–but I prefer to blame Hormel.

So to sum up:

• Pumpkin spice: still good.
• Pumpkin rice: a good idea but kind of a lot of work.
• Pumpkin Spice SPAM: Like, pretty bad, OK? I don’t want to talk about it.

When I’m done sulking about this, we’ll be back with your regularly scheduled Sandwich Content.