One Community’s Complicated Relationship With SPAM
For many Filipino Americans, SPAM isn’t just a beloved ingredient in a popular breakfast dish: It is a marker of Filipino identity. But after months of reporting on the canned meat and its cultural meaning, Gabrielle Berbey, an associate producer for The Experiment podcast, came to realize that SPAM’s history was far more complex than she’d originally thought. “SPAM, in my family, had this almost lore-like quality about it,” Berbey says. Yet for others, over time, SPAM came to represent the Philippines’ dependence on fatty, salty canned foods imported from overseas. “It turns out that a lot of people are wrestling with SPAM’s legacy.”
Berbey recently joined Julia Longoria, the host of The Experiment, for a conversation on Twitter Spaces to discuss the podcast’s three-part miniseries, SPAM: How the American Dream Got Canned. They were joined by Dave Jorgenson—a video producer, editor, and writer perhaps best known as “the Washington Post TikTok Guy”—who shared his own lifelong affinity for SPAM, and insights on its cultural resonance in the United States. This conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Gabrielle, we just spent—my gosh, how long has it been? Six months, at least—reporting on a pretty meaty topic: SPAM,
