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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Holly, do you

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Speaker 1: remember recently on our Facebook page and we had that

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Speaker 1: weird influx of self published the book spam? Yeah, Like

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Speaker 1: suddenly just tons of posts were showing up of people

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Speaker 1: promoting their published books that often had nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with history. No, none of them, And that was the

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Speaker 1: only thing and they had in common was that none

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Speaker 1: of them were about history. Otherwise they were by different people,

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Speaker 1: they were posted from different accounts, they were in different genres.

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Speaker 1: It was very strange. And because I was wondering maybe,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe there had been some article but had

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Speaker 1: gotten passed around that was like to promote your e

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Speaker 1: book post on random people's Facebook pages, I posted on

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Speaker 1: our Facebook page to say sort of, hey, listeners, any

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Speaker 1: of you how have any idea why this might be happening? Um.

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Speaker 1: A couple of people really went out of their way

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Speaker 1: to yell at us and call us idiots for even

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Speaker 1: asking that question. Most people kind of shrugged their shoulders

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Speaker 1: virtually about it. A few people gave us suggestions, who

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Speaker 1: are trying to like track down exactly what was going on,

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Speaker 1: but a couple of people said, you know, it would

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Speaker 1: be cool is if you did an episode about spam

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Speaker 1: the food. Not spam like the unwanted ecommunication, but spam

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Speaker 1: the food. And I can't get behind that because I

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Speaker 1: will loudly and proudly say I quite enjoy spam. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well uh, And immediately from just the few facts that

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Speaker 1: I already knew about spam's influence on various cuisines in

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Speaker 1: the wake of World War Two, I was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's do that. That sounds actually pretty interesting and awesome.

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Speaker 1: And then that led to several other people chim chiming

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Speaker 1: in with interesting tidbits about spam and history. So that

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Speaker 1: is what we were talking about today. Thank you random

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Speaker 1: people who put their weird e books on our Facebook page.

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Speaker 1: It was a journey, but we got to a cool

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Speaker 1: episode idea. But I like sharing the journeys. Sometimes a

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Speaker 1: lot of times people ask us how we come up

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Speaker 1: with these things. Well that's an example. So yes, today

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Speaker 1: we were going to talk about spam's history and how

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Speaker 1: spam played a part in some pretty important historical events,

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Speaker 1: namely World War two and the Korean War, so in

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Speaker 1: case anyone does not know, spam is made by Hormel Foods.

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Speaker 1: George A. Hormel was born in eighteen sixty in Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: New York. Now, their last name was originally pronounced Hormal

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Speaker 1: to rhyme with normal, and it's not totally clear when

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Speaker 1: Hormel became Hormel Um because we've both been saying Hormel

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Speaker 1: all our lives, and for the sake of consistency, we're

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Speaker 1: just gonna go with Hormel. That was definitely what the

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Speaker 1: company was calling itself by the time spam was invented.

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Speaker 1: So the Hormel family moved to Toledo, Ohio when George

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Speaker 1: was just six, and he worked in his father's tannery

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Speaker 1: after school. The Panic of eighteen seventy three meant that

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Speaker 1: the family found itself meeting additional income, so at the

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Speaker 1: age of twelve, George left school so that he could

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Speaker 1: spend more time working and make more money for the family.

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Speaker 1: After a few brief stints and a couple of other jobs,

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Speaker 1: he wound up working at his uncle's meat packing business,

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Speaker 1: and he worked there until he was nineteen, and George

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Speaker 1: continued to work in different jobs Throughout his young adulthood.

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Speaker 1: He was working as a traveling salesman when he found

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Speaker 1: a meat shop for sale in Austin, Minnesota, where he

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Speaker 1: was passing through while he was doing some business in

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Speaker 1: his sales and he bought this meat shop and he

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Speaker 1: opened it, putting his experience at his uncle's meat packing

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Speaker 1: operation into practice and opening his own meat business. Soon

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Speaker 1: he really wanted the business to be more than just

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Speaker 1: a butcher's shop, so he borrowed some money, found an investor,

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Speaker 1: and ablished George A. Cormel and Company. The George was

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Speaker 1: just G. E O with period after it, and they

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Speaker 1: operated out of an abandoned creamery that was in and

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Speaker 1: at that point he was thirty one years old, all

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Speaker 1: of the United States biggest meat packing operations were in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: and here he was in Austin, Minnesota, hundreds of miles

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Speaker 1: away from that sort of nexus of industry. And he

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Speaker 1: was also brand new. He was a small business in

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Speaker 1: an industry that at that point was completely dominated by

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Speaker 1: really established, longtime powerhouses. And he also didn't actually have

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Speaker 1: some of the equipment that he was going to need

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Speaker 1: to be, uh, you know, a large scale meat packer.

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Speaker 1: For example, he did not have refrigerated railed cars at

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Speaker 1: his disposal. Those have been around since eighteen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: but George did not have any until after the turn

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Speaker 1: of the century. So George Hormel needed to set himself

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Speaker 1: apart in some way. Since he couldn't just go head

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Speaker 1: to head with all these giant established meat packing companies,

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Speaker 1: he decided to focus on two things. The first was pork,

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Speaker 1: since more of the pig carcass was used than in

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Speaker 1: many other food animals, and quality, so when other businesses

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Speaker 1: were cutting their pork products with filt with fillers, he

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Speaker 1: really stuck as much as he could just to meet

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Speaker 1: that came from pigs and the company incorporated in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o one, and by nine four they were slaughtering a

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Speaker 1: million hogs each year. George Hormel's son Jay, He had

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Speaker 1: other sons as well, but Jay is the one who

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Speaker 1: plays a part in this part of the story. He

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Speaker 1: was a veteran of World War One, having served as

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Speaker 1: chief quartermaster in the American Expeditionary Forces. Jay came back

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Speaker 1: from the war with a sense of what canned goods

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Speaker 1: could do in terms of feeding an army, so he

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Speaker 1: encouraged Hormel to look into focusing on canned meat products.

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Speaker 1: The company's first canned ham came out in nineteen six.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty nine, George Hormel retired and Jay took

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Speaker 1: at the Helm after his father was no longer part

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Speaker 1: of the business. And at this point Hormel introduced Didnty

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Speaker 1: Moore beef stew and Hormel Chili UH. Those both came

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Speaker 1: out in at about the same time. The Hormel Company

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Speaker 1: recognized that it had a surplus of shoulder meat from pigs. Now,

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Speaker 1: this wasn't a particularly popular cut of meat because neatly

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Speaker 1: removing the meat from the bone was a really time

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Speaker 1: and labor intensive process, and because a lot of consumers

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Speaker 1: thought that it was inferior to other cuts of pork,

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Speaker 1: like ham. And what the Hormel Company decided to do

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Speaker 1: was to grind up this shoulder meat along with some

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Speaker 1: ham and add salt, water, a bit of sugar, and

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Speaker 1: some sodium nitrate. That last ingredient preserves the color of

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Speaker 1: the meat and it also inhibits bacterial growth. Uh and

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Speaker 1: today's spam also includes potato starch, but that was not

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Speaker 1: in the original It was added later to keep the

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Speaker 1: liquid from seeping out of the meat and forming a

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Speaker 1: gelatinous layer on top, which I remember seeing periodically and

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Speaker 1: hands when I was a kid, and it was indeed

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Speaker 1: kind of gross. Yeah, that was in the eighties when

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Speaker 1: they made that change. Um. This new product's name was

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Speaker 1: coined by Kenneth Dagonau, who was not only a Broadway

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Speaker 1: actor but also the brother of a Hormel VP. He

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Speaker 1: won a hundred dollars for his efforts. It's allegedly a

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Speaker 1: portmanteau of spiced and ham, but the specifics on that

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Speaker 1: are really not documented, and Hormel claims that what it

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Speaker 1: really stands for is a closely guarded secret that makes

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Speaker 1: it sound like it's uh, somehow secretly spelling out horrible

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Speaker 1: things that could be contained in it. But the important

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Speaker 1: thing is that spam took the world by storm, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about that after we have a

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Speaker 1: quick ad break. And now we'll get to spam and

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Speaker 1: how it came to dominate the market. Yeah. So spam

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Speaker 1: made its entry into the market in n seven and

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Speaker 1: its launch was accompanied by a huge advertising campaign, and

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Speaker 1: it builds spam is suitable for every meal and for snacks.

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Speaker 1: Spam was basically an instant hit, and it took eighteen

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Speaker 1: percent of the market share for canned ham in its

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Speaker 1: first year. That is hugely significant. The US was starting

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Speaker 1: to recover somewhat from the Great Depression, but overall, people

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Speaker 1: were really excited about having access to an inexpensive, shelf

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Speaker 1: stable source of meat. Plus it's really long shelf life

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Speaker 1: meant that you could stock up when you had extra

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Speaker 1: money and you would have like a nice little go

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Speaker 1: to in your pantry of edibles. Spam also got an

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Speaker 1: endorsement from George Burns and Gracie Allen on their radio

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Speaker 1: show There's a Charming Depending on Your Taste print ad

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Speaker 1: for both Spam and the show, in which George says

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Speaker 1: to Gracie, Gracie, if a strange man offered to buy

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Speaker 1: you lunch, what would you say? And then Gracie replies, spam.

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Speaker 1: I think it's charming, but it is pretty Basically everything

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Speaker 1: those two did was charming to me. Um. Also on

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Speaker 1: the print ad was the copy cold or Hot Spam

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Speaker 1: hits the spot Cold bits Spam and vegetable mold Spam

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Speaker 1: and salad sandwiches, Hot Spam and eggs, Spam and waffles,

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Speaker 1: Baked Spam, spam Burgers. A singing radio commercial also came

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Speaker 1: out in the forties that began and ended with the

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Speaker 1: words spam, spam, spam, spam, and to look at it,

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Speaker 1: as I did look at it many times since I

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Speaker 1: was doing research, it looks a lot like the Monty

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Speaker 1: Python sketch, but in reality it was sung to the

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Speaker 1: tune of My Body Lies over the Ocean. Now. I

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Speaker 1: just wish someone could convince Terry Jones to sing the

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Speaker 1: spam song in his family d voice to my Body

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Speaker 1: Lies over the Ocean. I bet we could. Would will

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Speaker 1: start a campaign. World War Two really launched spam into

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Speaker 1: the American patriotic consciousness. US residents were encouraged to give

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Speaker 1: up beef and premium cuts of other meats so that

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Speaker 1: they could help the war effort, and spam was a

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Speaker 1: handy alternative. Yeah. So, while people were eating spam out

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Speaker 1: of necessity towards the end of the Great Depression because

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Speaker 1: it was cheap and they didn't have a lot of money,

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Speaker 1: this time it was more of a sacrifice to support

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Speaker 1: the United States UM. The Hormel Company, along with other

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Speaker 1: meat producers, made specially packaged army versions of spam. These

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Speaker 1: were basically extremely large spam loaves and olive drab tins.

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Speaker 1: Then they weren't branded as spam with that distinctive blue

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Speaker 1: spam label. They contained some extra salt so that they

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Speaker 1: could withstand the temperature extremes of all the places that

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Speaker 1: the troops were deployed. Uh. There were also some ordinary

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Speaker 1: cans of spam that were basically bought in a pinch

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Speaker 1: to try to make ends meet for the men's rations.

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Speaker 1: Hormel wound up providing at least one hundred million pounds

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Speaker 1: of spam during World War Two. That's a lot of spam.

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Speaker 1: It's so much spam. It's a running theme in World

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Speaker 1: War two soldiers discussions of the war and for the troops.

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Speaker 1: The word spam actually came to mean any kind of

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Speaker 1: processed and preserved meat, and it was on the menu

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Speaker 1: a lot. It's often seemed like it was three meals,

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Speaker 1: three meals a day, every single day. So spam three

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Speaker 1: meals a day didn't literally need mean brand name spam,

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Speaker 1: but processed meat three meals a day. Yeah, People basically

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Speaker 1: thought of all of that stuff as spam. It's similar

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Speaker 1: to how all tissues are Kleenex, and that is the

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Speaker 1: thing that Hormil tries so hard to come back. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, when the Hormail company was celebrating its

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Speaker 1: seventy five birthdays, why D. Eisenhower wrote in a letter

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Speaker 1: to a retired Hormil president saying, quote, I ate my

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Speaker 1: share of spam, along with millions of other soldiers. I'll

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Speaker 1: even confess to a few unkind remarks about it. Uttered

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Speaker 1: during the strain of battle, you understand, But as former

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Speaker 1: commander in chief, I believe I can still forgive you

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Speaker 1: for your only sin sending us so much of it.

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Speaker 1: That's so much of it meant that a lot of

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Speaker 1: servicemen swore they would never touch another can of spam

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Speaker 1: once the war was over. And while this may have

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Speaker 1: been true at least temporarily, many people who had sworn

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Speaker 1: never to touch another piece of spam wound up feeling

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Speaker 1: a little nostalgic for it once the war was over.

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Speaker 1: Eating spam took on this patriotic air, and it was

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Speaker 1: bolstered this concept of patriotism linked to spam by Hormel's

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Speaker 1: advertising campaign, which tied spam to wholesome values and patriotic spirit,

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Speaker 1: and that advertising plan went on throughout the fifties. It

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Speaker 1: was also bolstered by a sixty member dance troup known

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Speaker 1: as the Hormel Girls, who toured around in USO fashion

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Speaker 1: after the end of the war after getting their start

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Speaker 1: in n I hope we have pictures of those I

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Speaker 1: saw a couple. I did not find any that we

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Speaker 1: can like put in our blog or anything. There are

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Speaker 1: some that could be a great Halloween costume. The company

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Speaker 1: sation of nostalgian patriotism meant that spams Heyday in the

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Speaker 1: US really ran through the fifties and the sixties. Cookbooks

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Speaker 1: featured spam is an ingredient in all kinds of dishes,

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Speaker 1: but as the seventies crept in, spam's popularity started to

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Speaker 1: fade a bit. On December fifteenth, nineteen seventy the last

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Speaker 1: skit on that night's episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus

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Speaker 1: was the infamous Spam sketch, in which a couple goes

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Speaker 1: to a cafe where they're serving a lot of spam,

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Speaker 1: and then there are vikings who also sing about spam. Then,

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Speaker 1: on December thirty one, nineteen seventy four, episode of mash

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Speaker 1: Hawkeye and Trapp or John Save Radar's Pet lamb for

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Speaker 1: being slaughtered for a feast by sculpting a new one

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Speaker 1: out of spam. Weird Al Yankovic's Spam song sung to

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Speaker 1: the tune of Our E m Stand came out in nine,

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Speaker 1: at which point the can meat had really become cemented

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Speaker 1: in the American consciousness as both a joke and junk food.

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Speaker 1: People started to think of spam as mystery meat made

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Speaker 1: of remnants, the way that hot dogs are reported to be,

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Speaker 1: even though its ingredients had not changed. Aside from that

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Speaker 1: addition of potatoes starts that we talked about earlier, and

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Speaker 1: today people really kind of think of spam as dated

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Speaker 1: and cheap, at least most people, yeah, in the United States.

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Speaker 1: This is not the case in several other parts of

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Speaker 1: the world. So to talk about spam in other parts

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Speaker 1: of the world, we need to zip back to World

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Speaker 1: War to you for a minute. In the United States,

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Speaker 1: the Lend Lease Act was passed on March eleventh, ninety one,

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Speaker 1: and as its name suggests, the Lend Lease Act allowed

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Speaker 1: the United States to lend or lease supplies and materials

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Speaker 1: to Allied nations without payment if doing so was quote

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Speaker 1: vital to the defense of the United States. So this

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Speaker 1: was a way for the United States to help the

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Speaker 1: war effort without actually committing troops, which would happen eventually

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Speaker 1: after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December seven

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Speaker 1: of the same year. Through the Lend Lease Act, spam

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Speaker 1: made its way to Russia. In Nikita Kushchev's memoir, speaking

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Speaker 1: of World War Two, he says, quote, there were many

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Speaker 1: jokes going around in the army, some of them off

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Speaker 1: color about American spam, but it tasted good. Nonetheless, without spam,

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't have been able to feed our army. Spam

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Speaker 1: also made its way to several other parts of the

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Speaker 1: world through the Lend Lease Act and through the presence

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Speaker 1: of American troops during the war, along with other military actions.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk specifically about Hawaii, which at

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Speaker 1: this point was not yet a state, as well as

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Speaker 1: the Philippines and South Korea. And in Hawaii, spam's influence

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Speaker 1: came from two sources. One was the American g i

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Speaker 1: s who were stationed there or who passed through Hawaii

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Speaker 1: on their way to other parts of the Pacific. The

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Speaker 1: other was Hawaii's Japanese population. So during World War two,

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Speaker 1: in the continental United States, the government forced many Japanese

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Speaker 1: Americans into internment camps. This is absolutely a thing that

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Speaker 1: is on the list for podcast episode later on. UM

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Speaker 1: consequently spam sometimes because it makes an appearance in Japanese

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Speaker 1: American food because it was one of the foods that

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Speaker 1: was being served in the camps. But Hawaii was not

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Speaker 1: yet a state, so the United States government could not

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Speaker 1: really begin interning its citizens. I mean, you could make

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Speaker 1: an argument that the United States government shouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: interning its citizens without due process in the first place.

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Speaker 1: It's super did not have that authority to do in Hawaii. Also,

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Speaker 1: the Japanese population of Hawaii was just too big to

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Speaker 1: be interned. There were way too many people of Japanese ancestry.

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Speaker 1: The camps that would have been required were too large

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Speaker 1: for the islands themselves to be able to support. There

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Speaker 1: was just no way that the United States could do

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Speaker 1: in Hawaii what it was doing in the continental United States. Instead,

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Speaker 1: to combat this perceived threat from people with Japanese ancestry,

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Speaker 1: restrictions were placed on the movements and activities of people

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Speaker 1: that were of Japanese descent in Hawaii. So Japanese Hawaiians

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Speaker 1: were banned from deep sea fishing, which had been one

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Speaker 1: of the ways that they primarily source their food for

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Speaker 1: the Japanese community. Because of Hawaii's remote location, it's landscape

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Speaker 1: and the available food sources, the easiest protein source for

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Speaker 1: Japanese Hawaiians to use to replace what they've lost from

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Speaker 1: deep sea fishing was spam. Consequently, spam has been incorporated

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Speaker 1: into many Japanese dishes, and these very based on different

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Speaker 1: ethnic groups who live in Japan, but in particular there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of sort of Hawaiian Japanese spam fusion. There's

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Speaker 1: a Yummy restaurant here in Atlanta that does a yummy

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Speaker 1: um spam entrede with gravy and deliciousness, and I absolutely

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Speaker 1: love it. Uh. The most famous example of the spam

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Speaker 1: dishes that they were making at this time is spam musubi,

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Speaker 1: which is spam over rice. It's wrapped in nori seaweed,

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Speaker 1: and it's sometimes erroneously called spam sushi. It does kind

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Speaker 1: of resemble a sushi role, but musubi is its more

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Speaker 1: accurate name. Today. Hawaii is, of course a state and

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Speaker 1: consumes more spam than any other state, and the island

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Speaker 1: of Waikiki hosts an annual spam jam Let's go um.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to the presence of g I s during World

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Speaker 1: War Two and an ongoing military presence thereafter, spam also

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Speaker 1: became very popular in Guam and Okinawa. In Korea and Japan,

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Speaker 1: citizens were really just desperately suffering during World War Two.

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Speaker 1: As a side note, if you have not seen the

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Speaker 1: Japanese film Grave of the Fireflies, this will give you

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Speaker 1: an idea of how desperately hard things were for Japanese

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Speaker 1: citizens during the war. Canned meats like spam really saved

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Speaker 1: people's lives and consequently became incorporated into local cuisines there

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Speaker 1: as well. In South Korea, this continued during the Korean War.

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Speaker 1: American soldiers station they're not considering spam to be particularly

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Speaker 1: valuable or important. We're happy to use it as trade

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Speaker 1: and to increase goodwill, and they would also sell it

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Speaker 1: on the black market later on and during the Korean War,

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Speaker 1: the United States Army's Postal Exchange or p X was

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Speaker 1: often the only place that people could get meat. Spam

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Speaker 1: was really what was available, and since people couldn't afford

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Speaker 1: to buy it necessarily from the p X, it really

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Speaker 1: came to be considered a luxury um. It's an ingredient

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Speaker 1: in a dish called boud aid gay, which I hope

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Speaker 1: I am pronouncing correctly, which is also called military stew,

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Speaker 1: and that's basically a thick stew that also includes Korean

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Speaker 1: ingredients like kimchi. A fried slab of pork called pew

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Speaker 1: yuck was also part of Korean cuisine before the introduction

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Speaker 1: of spam, and spam became a replacement for pork in

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Speaker 1: that dish when people couldn't get ahold of regular pork.

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Speaker 1: So spam is undoubtedly an economy class food in the

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Speaker 1: United States, but it's a little more expensive in Korea,

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Speaker 1: and this association with scarcity and expense from earlier times

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Speaker 1: means that today it's frequently given as a really high

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Speaker 1: class gift. Often this is part of a really elaborate

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Speaker 1: gift box that includes other foods. Korea is consequently the

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Speaker 1: world's second largest consumer of spam after the United States,

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Speaker 1: and spam similarly became popular in the Philippines as an

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Speaker 1: after effect of U S military presence. Today in the Philippines,

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Speaker 1: it's often purchased outside of the country by people who

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Speaker 1: are traveling for pleasure or business, and then brought home

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Speaker 1: with them as traditional homecoming gifts. Uh. This means a

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Speaker 1: lot of times if you're in duty free shops at

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Speaker 1: airports that cater to a lot of Filipino travelers, there

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Speaker 1: will be spam in the duty free shop. And spam

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Speaker 1: is treated in the Philippines on both the black and

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Speaker 1: the gray markets. And there are actually nine different legitimately

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Speaker 1: available varieties of spam there. There's even a Turkey version

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Speaker 1: for the nation's Muslim population. I wonder what that tastes like.

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Speaker 1: I also wonder what that tastes like. Um. The reason

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Speaker 1: that there are is a black market at a grain

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Speaker 1: market for spam is that there are some restrictions on

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Speaker 1: imports in Philippines, which means there's more demand for spam

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Speaker 1: than is actually allowed to be imported. Um. And when

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Speaker 1: when you look at the numbers of the number of

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Speaker 1: cans sold versus the number of people allowed to sell it,

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't add up. There is additional spam coming

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Speaker 1: from somewhere. So there's a legitimate argument to be made

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Speaker 1: here that all of these examples are examples of undo

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Speaker 1: American influence on other cultures. But in the case of

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Speaker 1: spam in particular, local cuisines have really taken spam and

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Speaker 1: then absorbed it and made it into something that is

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Speaker 1: uniquely their own, whereas in the United States people were

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Speaker 1: usually basically using spam as a substitute for other meat

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Speaker 1: rather than making something new and uniquely spam out of it.

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Speaker 1: And today's spam is distributed in more than fifty countries

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Speaker 1: and it's trademarked in more than a hundred. There are

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Speaker 1: actually two spam cans in the permanent collection at the

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Speaker 1: Smithsonian and in the Division of the History of Technology.

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Speaker 1: One was the original ninety seven can, which had to

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Speaker 1: be opened using a key, and the other is a

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Speaker 1: more modern luncheon meat can which was introduced in nine

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Speaker 1: which I think has the poll tab style UH. And

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Speaker 1: the look of the label for spam has stayed basically

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Speaker 1: the same all this time. Spam was also served at

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Speaker 1: a breakfast at the opening of a World War Two

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Speaker 1: exhibition at the National Museum of American History, and the

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00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:51,399
Speaker 1: circle back a little bit to Spam's manufacturer. Hormel is

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Speaker 1: still a majority owned by family, but it's no longer

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Speaker 1: really family run. Family still owns it, but other professionals

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Speaker 1: of running things are in charge of the company. I

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Speaker 1: also in this episode had a whole rather lengthy section

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Speaker 1: about labor history at the Hormail Company, which has some

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Speaker 1: actually very interesting twists and turns and contradictions. There were

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Speaker 1: parts of the company's history that were really revolutionary in

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Speaker 1: terms of labor relations, and then there are other parts

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Speaker 1: of the company's history in which there were really contentious

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Speaker 1: and heated strikes. And then in one case, uh, a

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Speaker 1: strange autoimmune disease that cropped up at one of its

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Speaker 1: meat suppliers. It's just the whole long series of things. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then as I you know, went through this outline

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Speaker 1: too edited, it all seemed extremely ancillary to the story

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Speaker 1: of spam. So I don't think we will have a

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Speaker 1: whole episode on the history of labor relations at the

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Speaker 1: Hormail Company. But if you are interested in such a thing,

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Speaker 1: I will put the links to my sources on that

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00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: in our show notes so you can check them out

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Speaker 1: for yourself. Uh I. UM. Most of of my research

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00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: for this sort of fell on either side of a weekend,

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00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: and on the friday part I kept being like, maybe

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Speaker 1: I should go get some spam and eat it, because

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Speaker 1: I don't I'm not sure I've ever eaten spam. I'm

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00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: sure I did at some point as a child. We

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00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: have it in our three Yeah, I know, I know

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00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 1: I've had should be fun toast, that's I know for sure. No,

414
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: but it is. It is another kind of military joke food.

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Speaker 1: We definitely have spam in our three day emergency kit,

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Speaker 1: you know, in case there's some kind of disaster. Uh

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Speaker 1: So that was sort of Friday, and then on Monday,

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Speaker 1: I had these resources that had all of these spam

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Speaker 1: recipes and I kept being like, that sounds disgusting. Like

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Speaker 1: the ones that were um, you know that the military

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Speaker 1: stew and the spam we stui Like that sounded really

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00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: interesting to me. But then there are ones that were

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Speaker 1: American feeds that were made with spam, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: that's the grossest thing that I've ever heard of. I'm

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Speaker 1: not throwing a shade to Spain a man. People have

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Speaker 1: put together to some gross sounding recipes. There are lots

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Speaker 1: of non spam gross recipes. Okay, one of them was

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00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: fake Escargo and I'm just gonna leave it. It's like

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Speaker 1: spam's Halloween costumes. I don't even know what that is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I like Escargo and the idea of using spam to

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00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: make uh fake escargo really grossed me out. It's a

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Speaker 1: little and um. On that note, I think I will

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Speaker 1: turn to some listener mail which is not about spam.

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Speaker 1: So this listener mail is from Sam. It is about

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00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: our Great Leap Forward episode. We are as we are

436
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: recording this, we're halfway through the publication of our mini

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00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: series on China under the helm of Chairman mal Zadong.

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00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 1: So this is UM from Sam on one of the

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00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: earlier episodes of the series. I'm a long time listener,

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00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: first time writer. I really enjoy your podcast. To thank

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00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: you for your work. I am a PhD student who

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00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: studies China, and I'm currently doing field work in China,

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00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: where podcasts such as yours have gotten me through countless

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00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: hours of data collection and travel between research sites. I

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00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: was very excited to see the mini series on China.

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00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to the Greatly Forward GLF episode

447
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: and I figured I would write in to tell you

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00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: about one of the other significant legacies of the g

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00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: LF that you did not discuss. An extension of the topic,

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00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 1: if you will. During the GLF, China instituted the modern

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00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,159
Speaker 1: form of its household registration system as a means of

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00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 1: actually implementing the planned economy. In order to collect agricultural

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00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: production from rural communes and distribute it successfully to urban communes,

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00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: the government had to find a way to identify who

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00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: lived where, in what type of commune, and to keep

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00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: them there so redistribution could be effective. Every individual received

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00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: a hu ko i actually I'm not sure if I'm

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00:26:55,720 --> 00:27:00,360
Speaker 1: pronouncing that correctly, or registration status, which identified them by

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00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: a physical location and type of commune, urban or rural.

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00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: Because rural communes produced the food, they were generally not

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00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: a lotted specific ractions by the government, whereas urban commune

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00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 1: residents who worked in factories had to be provided with

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00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: food rations. After the g LF fell to pieces, the

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00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: other government institutions that were set up at this time

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00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: to support the planned economy were scrapped, such as rigid

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00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 1: one price systems for government collections, but household registration status remained.

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00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: Up until the nineteen eighties. People were not legally allowed

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00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: to move outside of their registration location, meaning that labor

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00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 1: mobility was practically non existent, but these restrictions were loosened

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00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and eventually abolished in the nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: One thing that hasn't really changed, however, is government allotment

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00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: of resources. While the government no longer divides out food rations,

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Speaker 1: they do provide social welfare in the place of food distribution.

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00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: Local governments began offering social welfare benefits, including free public education,

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00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: eligibility for maternity care and workers compensation, health insurance, and

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00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:08,880
Speaker 1: pensions based on individuals registration status. Some services were reserved

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00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 1: for urban residents only, such as pensions. A rural person

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00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: could always rely on their land allowment to earn money

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Speaker 1: after retirement, and the services that were offered to both

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00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: were set up and managed through two different systems, with

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00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: urban systems better funded thanks separate but equal. These social

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00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: welfare differences remain to this day. The complicating factor is

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00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: that one's registration status is inherited. Your status generally follows

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00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: your mother, regardless of what type of work you do

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00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: or where you are physically located. Up until the nineteen nineties,

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00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: there were very few formal ways to change the status

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00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: you were born with, creating rigid inequalities. A common related

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00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: topic in Western news media is China's floating population or

489
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: migrant workers. Internal migrants registered far away from where their

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00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: registration status is and many who have rural status. For

491
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: these at the edules who moved to the coast to

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00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: gain employment, there's significant labor surplus in rural areas. They

493
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: generally have no option to access local welfare services such

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00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 1: as locally provided health insurance, public education for their children,

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00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: and pensions, making socio economic mobility difficult and hindering integration

496
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: of these two groups identified and separated during the time

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00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: of the Great Lead Forward. While the system is under

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00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: reform the subject of my dissertation research, there remains and

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00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: will remain for many generations, a significant yeah between those

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00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: who have access to government services and those who do not.

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00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: Just thought you might be interested in this other significant

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00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: legacy of the g LF SAM. Absolutely, yes, we are

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00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: interested in that legacy. Um. I think I mentioned UH

504
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the whole Many series that there

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00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: was just no way to cover every aspect of it.

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00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: So I'm hugely happy that somebody spent the time to

507
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: explain that whole part of it, which not only is

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00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: something that we didn't talk about in the episodes, but

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00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: it is something that didn't even come up in the

510
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: particular sources that I was using UH for research at all.

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00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Sam. If you would like

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00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: to write to us, we're at history podcast that how

513
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, or Facebook is Facebook dot com

514
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: slash missed in History, and our Twitter is missed in History.

515
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: Our tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com,

516
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: or on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slat missed in History.

517
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: You can buy t shirts and phone cases and all

518
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: kinds of other stuff at our spreadshirt store, which is

519
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: at missed in History dot spreadshirt dot com. If you

520
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: would like to learn more about what we have talked

521
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: about today, you can come to our parent company's website

522
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: that is how stuff Works dot com, but the words

523
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Speaker 1: spam in the search bar, and in addition to finding

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00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: an article on email spam, you will find how Spam Works,

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00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: which talks all about the food and how it's made

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00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: and what's in it. You can also come to our website,

527
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: which is missing history dot com to find show notes

528
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: and an archive of every single episode and occasionally other

529
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,239
Speaker 1: stuff that we decide to blog about. There you can

530
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Speaker 1: do all of that and so much more at how

531
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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and missing history dot com for

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics is it

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