It all started back in 1937, during the Great Depression. The Hormel Foods Corporation in Minnesota had a problem: they had tons of leftover pork shoulder (not the fancy stuff) and needed to sell it.
Enter a clever guy named Jay Hormel, who invented a canned pork-and-ham product. But the product needed a name that wouldn’t make people think of “mystery slop” (though let’s be real, it’s a little mysterious).
The company held a naming contest at a New Year’s Eve party. They offered $100 to whoever coined the winning moniker. That was serious cash back then!
The Winning Word
A man named Kenneth Daigneau, a movie actor and brother of a Hormel VP, won the prize. He suggested a simple, snappy word: Spam.
But where did he get it? He smushed together two words: spiced ham. Yes, it’s literally a portmanteau—a fancy word for a word salad.
Here’s the funny part: the product didn’t actually contain much ham. It was mostly pork shoulder. But “Spiced Pork Shoulder” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it?
