Junk Food Nation, we live in a modern era, and if anything, it has just created more ways for any of us to be embarrassed.  Case in point: we’ve all been over to a friend’s house and gone through their medicine cabinets.  Shut up, you’ve done it.  And it provides plenty of humor, for sure: acne cream (tee hee), hemorrhoidal cream (tee hee hee), valium (I’ll just slip a few of those into my pocket), and cialis/viagra (I’ll just swap some of those into their aspirin bottle). In a lot of ways, your medicine cabinet reveals a lot about you that you don’t expect the public to see.

Recently, I went over to a friend’s house, and while my buddy was dicking around somewhere, I started to watch TV… and decided to see what was on his DVR.  Your DVR, like your medicine cabinet, reveals a lot about you. And this guy’s was a window into his soul:

1) The 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Look, I’m a red-blooded American male who likes scantily clad jiggly women as much as the next…but the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show?  And not only that, but the 2009 one??? Was that one a keeper, dude? Wanna show that one to the grandkids, or something? He had to actively make sure that one wasn’t deleted or recorded over…awkward.

More after the jump.  Today’s junk food comes from my friends Indira and Nevin: Hamakua Plantations SPAM Classic Flavor Macadamia Nuts! (Thanks, Martells!)

I’ll be honest, when I saw these, my jaw dropped. I’ve been to Hawaii before, so I know about their love (an obsessive advertisement) of macadamia nuts.  I also know about the Pacific Islander obsession with SPAM – I’ve had the Philippines dish of rice with runny egg and crispy SPAM before.

But to combine the two in one snack???? NEVER CONTEMPLATED.  Holy hell, why do these exist??

The Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company is Hawaii based and produces 100% Hawaii grown macadamia nuts.  Besides SPAM flavored, they also have other flavors like Wasabi, Hula Jalapeno, and my personal favorite, Chili Peppah.  No, not Chili Pepper.  Chili Peppah.  PEPPAH.  Like you’re from the Jersey Shore.

Gotta love simple ingredient combos, though, right? Nuts, salt and SPAM flavoring.  MMMMM MMMMM that sounds natural! Glad there’s no chemicals that need listing in that SPAM FLAVORING.

Old school metal can, with old school instructions. Love it – it’s like hieroglyphics for junk food.

And there they are! Yeeeeeeeeg….. they look like macadamia nuts…flavored with SPAM.  Oh wait, that’s what they are.  I have the heebie jeebies all of a sudden.

I smelled the can, and the initial odor was…well, I dunno how to describe it.  Sort of smelled like cooked eggs and ham.  Not rotten eggs, and not sulphur in smell, but…like how an Egg McMuffin might smell, or any fried egg and ham sandwich.  As I breathed in and out, and the smell became more clear, I could definitely smell the ham/SPAM coming through.

For those of you who don’t know, according to Wiki:

“Spam (officially trademarked as SPAM) is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Spam’s gelatinous glaze, or aspic, forms from the cooling of meat stock.”

Um, I need to go lie down now.

Each nut was lightly dusted with an off-pink powder with some specks of red.  I have horrible visions of cans and cans of SPAM being dehydrated and ground to a dust, mixed with salt, and them sprinkled onto these nuts.

Sidenote: that is probably EXACTLY how these were created.

I took a nut and crunched on it…initial taste, just salty.  Weird, no SPAM taste.  So I took another nut and crunched it, chewing harder this time to mix the powder flavor.  A strange meatiness, but no real SPAM flavor.  Undaunted, I took another nuts, and this time just sucked at the powder — and THERE IT WAS.

SPAM flavor, REALLY strong – I could taste the hammy meatiness of the SPAM in the powder, and the salty brine mixed with it.  I took another few and popped them all in my mouth at the same time, sucking and chewing.  The SPAM flavor remained strong and mixed with the flavor of the crunchy macadamia nuts; it was almost as if now that my taste buds were tuned in to the flavor, I couldn’t NOT taste the SPAM.

My review: well, if Hamakua wanted to get the flavor profile matched just right, they did a good job. Otherwise, I was so creeped out eating these I’m not sure if they were good.  I know that I don’t want to eat any more.  And that’s telling. *shudder*

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Continuing on to what else I found on my friend’s DVR:

2) Eight episodes of the Office, ten episodes of the Family Guy.  Seriously, you need to record these shows?  The Office and Family Guy are on all the time.  These two shows have been syndicated ad nauseam – I truly believe that I could flip on the TV at ANY TIME and find a re-run of these two shows. Why are you wasting valuable DVR space on these episodes, when there’s more Victoria Secret Fashion Shows to record, buddy?

3) Recorded news broadcasts from the past two days.  Um, ok. I mean, I kinda think today’s episode of the news is gonna ruin the last two, but whatever.

4) Last week’s episode of Doctor Who on SyFy. As much as I wanna bust on you for being a sci-fi geek, I’m right with you on this one.  Did you see that one with the Daleks?? You know…when the Doctor… Wait, no, no don’t tell me – I’ll catch up in the forums.

5) Sons of Anarchy, Entourage, and the League episodes. Testosterone driven TV.

6) Music & Lyrics starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant.  Weirdo.

And finally:

7) An infomercial for ProActiv.  Ok, look – acne is a problem (see medicine cabinet), and I understand that ProActiv is a great product. But, recording the infomercial? I mean, you can’t just write down/remember the website address and order it online?  You know those time sensitive deals they offer on TV with the ticking clock…don’t still apply when you watch the commercial days later, right?  And maybe if you weren’t drying your face on that musty ass-smelling towel in your bathroom all the time, you wouldn’t have so many pimples, Pig Pen.

So remember, Junk Food Nation – before you go leaving your remote out for your friends to peruse the boob tube, be sure to delete all those embarrassing for-your-eyes-only recordings – like that slew of episodes of the Red Shoe Diaries, perv.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy