Great Days in History July 5

What would Hawaii be without SPAM and bikinis?

On July 5, 1937, Hormel introduced SPAM and changed the culinary habits of the Islands forever. Hawaii has the largest per capita consumption of SPAM of any state.  It is sometimes called the "Hawaiian steak." It's so popular, you can find it on the menus at McDonald's and Burger King restaurants.

A popular SPAM dish is SPAM Musubi.

Musubi Ingredients:

                

            5 cups of cooked rice

·                1 can of Spam, sliced

·                5 or 6 sheets of nori

·                Furikake 



Teriaki Sauce Ingredients:

·                1/2 cup brown sugar

·                1/4 cup soy sauce

·               1 clove garlic, crushed (optional) 

    Instructions: 

Mix all sauce ingredients and stir until sugar is dissolved. Set aside. Fry spam until crisp on both sides. Pour sauce into the pan with the Spam, and turn spam several times to coat thoroughly. Simmer until sauce thickens, and remove from heat. 

Place a sheet of Nori on a board, place a musubi maker in the middle of the nori, fill the musubi maker with rice, and press. Top with 2 pieces of Spam. Remove the mold and wrap nori tightly over the Spam and rice. Repeat with remaining nori and Spam. cut each musubi in half with a wet knife, and dip the ends of each half in furikake.





Would Hawaiian beaches be beautiful without bikinis? Of course. But the bikini is what we in the assessment business call "value added." Do bikinis make Lanikai beach more spectacular? You be the judge. 

On July 5, 1946, Louis Reard unveiled his swimsuit creation, the bikini, in Paris. Why don't we have a day of celebration and statues in his honor? Here is Micheline Bernardini modeling the first bikini. When asked how the bikini differed from other two-piece swimsuits, Reard explained that it's a bikini if it's small enough to pull through a wedding ring.