The Spam Museum had its Grand Opening this week, sort of. Originally scheduled for Sept. 15-16, the event was cancelled in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The museum quietly opened to the public then, but delayed any significant Spam hoopla until now.

According to Grand Opening attendee and tipster Ed Goto, "What occurred on June 15 and 16 of this year was called the Spam Jam (since it features jazz bands). The Jam could be called the grand opening ceremony, but beyond the one volunteer who apparently blurted this out without benefit of supervision, no one else mentioned this or saw fit to explain."

Ed also wrote: "The museum is huge! Easily a 1.5 hour tour, maybe more if the interactive exhibits are working (there's a Spam trivia game which is said to be a killer). Learn more about Hormel meat products than you could possibly care about, but unlike most places of corporate history as told by the corporations, Hormel at least shows a sense of humor in acknowledging its past and present, with a keen eye towards trivia about itself. I don't know if Nikita Khruschev actually said that Spam saved the Russian Army during WWII, but someone should have said that."

More about the museum:

• SPAM played an important role in feeding the Allied Forces during World War II. The SPAM Museum features a letter to Hormel from President Dwight D. Eisenhower and includes a replication of SPAMVILLE, a military camp named after the wartime treat.
• A towering wall of SPAM, comprised of 3,390 cans, rises to the ceiling in the lobby of the museum.
• One vignette in the museum features life-sized representations of Hormel Foods founder George Hormel and his son, Jay. George Hormel's own desk - and an original timeclock from Hormel Foods early days - also are on display.
• The museum features a rendition of Monty Python's classic three-minute SPAM skit, which has fun highlighting the ubiquity of SPAM in Britain since World War II.

[06/16/2002]