JESS DU JOUR: IT'S A SPAM WORLD AFTER ALL

"Fresh pork butts, just $1.89 a pound."

Yesterday I was tooling around town in my Bronco, being pleasantly entertained by my radio. Betwixt two of my favorite songs, however, I was startled by this advertisement for the most revolting type of meat that I have ever heard of.

In this brief advertisement for the hind quarters of a pig, I found many criticisms. Is it just me, or did this store select the wrong adjective when they were describing their product? "Fresh?" Is the idea of a "fresh butt" appetizing to you?

Secondly, a cardinal rule in Jess's Rules of Dinner Etiquette is never, NEVER consume anything that incorporates the word "butt" into its formal name. "Pork butt" is, by the way, the formal name for this meat-market feature, as demonstrated in this over-the-grill conversation:

"So, Bob, whatcha got on the old Weber grill this afternoon?"

"Well let's see. I got some chicken over here and some steaks over on that side and some hot dogs over there. Oh yeah, and this whole side is for my pork butt, which I marinated with my special pork butt sauce and basted with my handy dandy pork butt baster."

But pork butts are not the only entertaining meat on the deli shelves. I present to you, the most container-molded mystery meat known to man, (blaring trumpet introduction)...

SPAM.

I have yet to decipher the word combination behind Spam -- SPare parts and hAM? SPoiled food and hAM? SPinach and hAM?

Regardless of its mystifying alias, Spam remains one of the most versatile meats (?) in the free world. To emulate a highly emulated Forrest Gump scene, you got fried Spam, baked Spam, scrambled Spam, Spam sandwiches, Spam casserole, Spam pie, and Spam milk shakes. Here a Spam, there a Spam, everywhere a Spam-Spam.

Puzzling meats are everywhere. Bologna, (a.k.a. truck driver steak), has such uniform consistency and pinkish color that it is difficult for my mother to convince me that it is actually a palatable meat. But eating regular bologna never compared to the trauma that pimento loaf elicited during my childhood. Not only is pimento loaf made of uniformly mixed meat, but it is litteredwith little spicy red pimentos that plagued my entire adolescence.

When I was a wee lass, I would gawk at the stuff for several minutes, ultimately deciding to pick all the pimentos off and flick them onto the table near my bologna. My bologna would still taste like pimentos. I hated those pimentos, and, to this day, I loathe the little red tidbits that tainted my bologna sandwiches.

Another cryptic meat product, the hot dog, is one that I rarely include in my diet. A common question is asked of the hot dog: What meats (?) are they composed of? Though the answer to this inquiry has been pursued by health-conscious consumers for eons, I have given up hope of finding it. I do, however, have a new discovery to report. Hot dog meat, whatever kind it may be, is encased in pig intestines. (I am NOT making this up. That 6-year-old told me the truth-- girls scout's honor.) The intestine fact alone, true or false, is enough to permanently turn me against all hot dogs, bun-length or not.

In fact, in lieu of hot dog casings, Spam shakes and pork butts, I believe I will religiously choose chicken and turkey for my sandwiches and entrees. The moment that I hear an advertisement for a chicken butt or a turkey butt, I will leave the meat world completely; I will jump off the meat industry bridge into a river of strict vegetarianism.

Jessica McCuan is a senior at Jackson High School and editor of the student newspaper.