Are Bologna And SPAM One And The Same?

Spam and bologna are both kitchen staples in many households. But since they're both made of emulsified meat, it'd be hard not to see them as similar. But when it comes down to the details, they end up being quite different. Spam, for one, comes to you in a shelf-stable version, meaning you can simply keep it in your pantry until you open it the first time, while bologna must always be refrigerated.

That means Spam's manufacturing technique is much different — its raw ingredients are cooked directly in the can before it's sent out for purchase (hence that perfect loaf shape). Bologna, on the other hand, is cured and then either cooked or smoked in a casing (which is subsequently removed) before being sold either whole or in pre-sliced packages that must be chilled at all times up until serving. The main difference you'll find, however, is in the ingredients of each, because while one can feature a mixture of multiple types of meats, the other only contains one. 

In short, Spam is only made with two specific types of pork: shoulder meat and ham. Despite its reputation for being a form of mystery meat, that's really it — no trimmings, skin, or organ meats are involved. The rest of its ingredients include salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite, a preservative. The meat is first broken down from whole cuts of shoulder and ham which is then ground down in a chilled environment. (Notably, Spam comes in many varieties, some of them flavored, which means additional ingredients.)

After that, it's mixed with the remaining ingredients and deposited in the cans many are familiar with. The whole cans are heated using a hot water bath to cook the meat and sterilize the cans, then they're cooled off, labeled, and tested for quality control, until they're finally ready to be shipped out and sold.

Spam has all sorts of culinary uses across the globe. You can eat it straight from the can (since it's fully cooked) or you can pan-cook slices on both sides to eat with things like eggs, which is one of my favorite pairings. You can also make fried rice with Spam. The most famous use for the canned meat is in Hawaiian musubi, which takes grilled Spam (usually glazed in a soy-based sauce) and puts it on rice before being wrapped with dried seaweed. The result resembles a meaty nigiri, and it makes for a good on-the-go snack. Or, of course, you can get really creative and make tacos out of the stuff.

Unlike Spam, bologna has a lot of wiggle room in terms of its base meat. It can be made with anything from beef, pork, turkey, or chicken. Similarly to Spam, the meat starts off being ground into a paste. Most bologna contains flavoring agents of some sort, ranging from spice blends to corn syrup, along with potential other ingredients. Though it's not commonplace any longer, some bologna products can also contain organ meats, which must be divulged on its ingredients list. 

Bologna is cooked one of two ways by the manufacturer, either by smoking it or simply heating it up in an industrial environment. It is a direct relative of the Italian meat mortadella, another emulsified cured meat, though mortadella has visible chunks of fat in it along with other ingredients like pistachios and whole peppercorns. 

For the most part, people use bologna for sandwiches. You can slap it on some white bread with a squiggle of yellow mustard and call it a day or you can get a little fancy by pan-frying it to give it some color then topping it with any ingredients you like. Between the two ingredients, Spam's more of the versatile one, since people prefer to cook with it, but bologna's usually the one most people reach for if they want lunch in 30 seconds or less.