When it comes to middle school memories, everyone remembers their first kiss, or the first time they danced (or awkwardly shuffled) in a hot auditorium. My most distinctive middle school memory, however, is the first time I ever tried Spam musubi — a completely new, and different, type of love affair.
I was 12 and at the horseback riding barn I visited on the weekends. I’d befriended a new girl at the stables who was roughly my age. After our lesson, covered in dust and sweat, we plopped down next to each other to watch the horses. She pulled out a seaweed-wrapped package from her lunch bag. “Do you want some?” she offered.
I’d never seen or even heard of Spam, let alone Spam musubi. But one bite of the fluffy rice, salty canned meat, sweet and sticky teriyaki glaze, and briny seaweed and I was hooked. I loved how portable it was, and tasting the layers of rice and meat that were compacted together. Each week I would see the same girl, and sure enough, she’d have another parcel of Spam musubi to share with me.
Growing up in Los Angeles, I had a plethora of local-style Hawaiian restaurants where I could find spam musubi (alongside other favorites like loco moco, Portuguese sausage, and kahlua pork). But when I moved to New York, I realized these Hawaiian delicacies were harder to come by — that when I craved them, I’d have to prepare them myself. This was the true catalyst for buying my first musubi press.
The musubi press is simple to use. All you have to do is lay down a sheet of nori, load up your rice and toppings in the Spam-shaped centerpiece, and smush everything with the accompanying press. Yes, Spam fits perfectly in this gadget (after all, it was designed specifically for Spam), but I love to incorporate other ingredients like kimchi, omelets, and spicy tuna. The Spam-branded mold is also non-stick and I love its translucent blue color.
I’ve seen people suggest rinsing out a can of Spam and using that as a mold instead. I tried that method once when I was in dire straits, but I was afraid of cutting myself on the sharp metal, and it was challenging to tightly compress everything. I also don’t want to have an old Spam can in my kitchen drawers. If you have any interest in making musubis at home, the musubi mold is worth the investment (and at $10, it’s not really much of an investment) to ensure the rice is tightly compacted. It makes for the neatest, and therefore tastiest, musubis.
