The SPAM Museum. Really.

Location: Austin, MN

"Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam."
-- Waitress reciting the breakfast menu in Monte Python sketch

Yes, Virginia, there really is a SPAM museum. It's the place where all things piggy go to celebrate Hormel's sense of humor when it comes to their famous canned meat product. Served primarily at breakfast or lunch, it is made from Shoulder of Pork and hAM (or sometimes said to mean SPiced hAM). Thanks to a Monte Python sketch the word has taken on a new meaning -- you may know it better as bulk advertisements posted on the web or through email. But the food product lives on -- especially in Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, which have the largest per-capita consumption of Spam in the United States -- around 16 cans per person, per year. It has been referred to as "Hawaiian Steak," and even the McDonalds and Burger Kings there have Spam on the menu.

But on to the museum:

You can get Spam recipes from computers there -- the butter is the clicker and the egg is the roller-ball mouse:

Who does the door to the theater remind you of?

I don't think I'd throw cans of Dinty Moore Ox Tails (bottom left) into my shopping cart very often:

They get an award for Humane Slaughtering, and display it next to a picture of a pig with a ribbon around its neck? Did the rest of the piggies humanely get a ribbon, too, perhaps to make them feel that they are all winners -- just before taking that long, long walk to the Pig Sty of Destiny?

And finally, a day at the museum wouldn't be complete without a photo op with Spammy! Oops -- just where is that big hunk o' meat putting his hands?