Bacon Wrapped Bacon Spam Cracker Sandwiches

I finally decided to do something with that Bacon Spam I picked up a couple weeks ago. As everyone knows, bacon begets bacon, so I made Bacon Wrapped Bacon Spam Cracker Sandwiches. This is a slight variation on the old appetizer of bacon wrapped crackers that you find in 50's era cookbooks, James Beard's American Cookery is one outstanding example. Even though I am supremely suspicious of Spam, I almost barfed while I was slicing it, these actually came out quite delicious.



I started by shimmying the bacon Spam out of its container onto a plate.



There it was, looking like some bastard Spam/Bacon monolith. It kind of looked like regular Spam, only a little browner and it stinked a little bit like smokey bacon. I began by slicing the Spam block into little cracker shaped slices.



Out of these I made little Spam cracker sandwiches. 1 slice Spam, 2 crackers. I used whole wheat club crackers, the kind made in the hollow tree by elfs.



I wrapped each one of these with a nice, thin slice of bacon and placed them loose bacon end down on a foiled cookie sheet.



These little guys went into the oven at 250 degrees for about an hour and 10 minutes until the bacon was nice and crisp. You want to cook these guys low and slow or the bacon will quickly constrict and crush your crackers. They came out looking nice and brown and crisp.



After letting them cool slightly I took one and sliced it carefully with my bad ass chef's knife.



Mmmmm, porky, crispy, spammy, bacon-spammy.



Verdict: Well slap me in the face, these were actually delicious. I will stop fearing and badmouthing Spam all of the time, it seems that there are tasty ways to prepare it. The outside bacon was crisp, the Spam center was soft and had good salty/bacon flavor. The whole wheat crackers lent a nice textural component, it seemed that during the cooking process they had absorbed spam/bacon grease, became soggy and then re-crisped a little. It was a nice contrast of texture from toothsome bacon, to crisp greasy cracker, to soft Spam center. The flavor was rich and delicious, I detected a slight vanillan undertone which was strange, it must have come from the Spam. I am actually going to attempt to convert some of my friends into Spam eaters this weekend with this cunning little hors d'oeuvre. I think this concept would lend itself to some highbrow applications as well, sub a little pate for the Spam perhaps? Delicious.