SPAMARAMA™ Store

The World Famous Pandemonious Potted Pork Party!

The Home for
SPAMARAMA® Lovers

If you were looking for the Officially Sanctioned and Hormel Approved
website:

Click here!

Excerpts From The Official SPAMARAMA^™ Cookbook:

It was the early spring of 1976. Dick Terry and I were fraternizing one afternoon and Dick was bellyaching about how chili cook-offs had become so common-place." I mean, anybody can cook chili." Dick observed, "All you need is some kinda meat, some water, chili powder, comino, and maybe some cayenne, garlic, and/or onion, and you got yer basic chili. If you're from north of the Red River, you might throw in some kinda beans, but basically, that's about all it takes to make 'chili.'" " Yeah, not much of a challenge there, is it?" I responded.

" Now if someone could make SPAM^® edible," Dick continued, "That would be a challenge. We ought to have a a 'SPAM^®-Off.'"
" Yeah, a 'SPAMARAMA^™!'" I blurted out. "We could ask George Majewski over at Soap Creek Saloon if he'd like to host it, and we could have it on April Fool's Day." " Let's do it!" Dick agreed.

And that, in a nutshell, is the beginning of the very first, longest running and funnest SPAM^® event in the history of the entire universe. I never thought that it would last more than a year or two. I never thought it would attract more than a handful of Spamophiles who had been cooking and eating the infamous potted pork product since World War II. I never thought there were so many things you could make out of SPAM^®!
But I was wrong! .......

David Arnsberger
The Potentate of Potted Pork Parties

---

Excerpt from the Austin Chronicle

Austin's Quintessential Silly Bar Party
SPAMTASTIC™ SPAMARAMA™
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
March 31, 2000
In the spring of 1984, my wholesale dessert business and catering company entered the seventh annual SPAMARAMA^™ with a dish called SPAMBOLI™. Though we garnered only an honorable mention in the professional division, a local TV news crew did stop by our booth for a chat. CNN just happened to pick up that story, and for the next 24 hours, I was discussing the making of SPAMBOLI™ on international news. People called my mother from all over to tease her about my serendipitous TV appearance. "I thought you told us she was in Austin making fancy desserts and catering, but I saw her on the news talking about how to cook with ... SPAM^®," my aunt cackled. Mother, who had never served SPAM^® in our household a day in her life, was not amused.

That's SPAMARAMA^™ for you: Austin's quintessential silly bar party where the unexpected, the ridiculous, and/or the disgusting are always likely to happen. You see, the pandemonious pork pattie party was the product of an earlier, simpler time when the city didn't take itself nearly so seriously as it does today. It's one of those events that defines a certain laid-back aspect of Austin, Texas, in the last quarter of the 20th century that seems to be disappearing. For the last 22 years, SPAMARAMA^™ has been one of the traditional rites of spring, like Eeyore's Birthday Party or cutting class/calling in sick because the weather is beautiful and it's an obvious lake day.

Back when SPAMARAMA^™ first started, there weren't too many upscale restaurants or CIA-trained chefs here in River City, but the cook-off always attracted a broad cross-section of amateur and professional cooks. Some guys, such as multiple SPAMARAMA^™ award-winner John Myers (aka Chef SPAM^®) always went the haute cuisine route with dishes such as SPAM^® Oscar, SPAM^® Cordon Bleu, or SPAM^® Puffs. Other guys, like Kevin Rollins, took a completely different direction and perennially competed for the "Worst" dish, creating delicacies like SPAM-ALAMA™ Ding-Dongs and other questionable food items too disgusting to describe even in an alternative newspaper.....

Original article

---

Excerpt from the Daily Texan

SPAM^® Takes the City by Storm!
By Dan Kleiner
On April 1, a torch left New York City headed for Austin with a can of SPAM sitting atop it where the fire should have been. When a girl ran with the torch through the gates of Waterloo Park on Saturday, it began the 26th year of a festival inspired by the meat product that fed England during World War II.

SPAMARAMA^™ drew thousands - an estimated 8,000 to 9,000 people - to the park for music, food, rides and the SPAMALYMPICS. " SPAMARAMA^™ has gone through a lot of changes, and this year is no different," said Norman Kieke, the executive director of Disability Assistance of Central Texas, SPAMARAMA^™'s main sponsor. "It grew out of a small neighborhood function and gets better every year. We are always very excited."

The SPAM^®-related festival started out small as an alternative event to April Fools' Day barbecues at the original Soap Creek Saloon. It has since moved to Waterloo Park and picked up the support of Kieke's organization, which receives 50 percent of the proceeds and uses them to provide employment support, technology training and general assistance to disabled Central Texans.

Local rock band Uranium Savages opened the festival and the second event, a SPAM^® toss, began the SPAMALYMPICS. The youngest competitor, 11-year-old Alex Hager, opened the SPAM^® calling contest, which is just like hog calling but with the word "SPAM^®." His unique call, a series of armpit noises followed by a call of "Here SPAM^®, here SPAM^®!" took the gold medal.

Returning to defend their title in the SPAM^® toss were Mark and Cody Mikeska, a father-son team with four previous SPAM^® tosses under its belt. SPAM^® tossers throw a chunk of SPAM^® to each other at increasing distances until someone drops it. After three rounds of flying SPAM^®, which sometimes christened spectators with SPAM^® juice, the defending champions were pitted against two other teams. The Mikeskas won the 2004 championship. "The key is getting enough elevation under the SPAM^®," Mark Mikeska said after their victory.

Many groups occupied tents, including 10-year SPAMARAMA^™ veterans the Squealage People. The men dressed up as the Village People with pig-like modifications. Nathan Hinds, who drove from San Marcos for the festival, said he was particularly proud of their accomplishments this year. "Today we have a concoction called 'Queer Pork on a Straight Fork'," Hinds said. "We have won the 'Worst Taste' award eight of the last nine years, and we're darned proud of that."

After sampling the creations of various culinary artists, spectators saw the most heated and controversial SPAMARAMA^™ event - the Collegiate SPAM^® Relay. The race pitted UT students against contestants from Texas A&M University in a relay. It started out dead even, but by the final SPAM^® handoff, the Aggies had gained a slight lead. UT's Randy Gonzalez, a 23-year-old chemical engineering senior, narrowed the lead but lost control of the SPAM^® in the last few seconds. Victory went to Texas A&M, inciting booing and calls for a rematch from the crowd

After a short break, people began surging forward, pushing and leaning to get as close to the stage as possible for the final event. For years, the SPAM^®-eating contest was known as the SPAM^® cram. This year, the International Federation of Competitive Eating sponsored the event, bringing with it Rich and Carlene LeFevre, two of the world's most renowned eaters. The couple whizzed through SPAM^® burgers, and Carlene performed her trademark "Carlene bounce," jumping up and down to settle food in her stomach. After the final bell, Rich came out on top, having eaten just more than six 12-ounce SPAM^® burgers. Carlene won second place with just under five. When asked about the level of competition, Rich LeFevre said, "I was only worried about Carlene."

With the conclusion of the Spamalympics came the awards presentation for the cook-off winners. The Squealage People successfully defended their Worst Taste title with "Queer Pork on a Straight Fork," and the Lone Star Cafe-sponsored Spalamo team won the Best in Show prize for its Alamo-shaped SPAM^® appetizers.

Original Article

All Rights Reserved. The Wizard of Austin, Inc. © 2005
SPAM® is a registered trademark of the Hormel Foods Corp. for luncheon meat. SPAMARAMA™ is a trademark of the Hormel Foods Corp. for an annual festival in Austin, TX. Also, Hormel Foods Corp. has no financial or legal association with this Website.