This is The On the Media Midweek Podcast on Verklaid Stone.

This week we're bringing you a story from our colleagues at the experiment, a show produced

by WNYC and the Atlantic.

It's about spam, the meaty kind.

During World War II, whenever American troops spread democracy, they left the tinned pork

mix in their wake, tossing cans of spam out of trucks to the hungry people they sought

to liberate.

That's how experiment producer Gabrielle Burbe's grandfather first came to know and love

spam as a kid in the Philippines.

Once a classic American product, 80 years later it's now a staple Filipino food, a beloved

emblem of Filipino identity.

In this episode, the first of a three-part series, Gabrielle sets out to understand how

spam made its way into the hearts of generations of Pacific Islanders and ends up opening a

spam can of worms.

Host of the experiment, Julia Lungoria, sets up the premise and returns later in the

episode.

How did spam get to the Philippines?

The story starts on a horrific day in US history.

Hours after bombing Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops bombed Manila, which is the capital

of the Philippines where my family is from.

And what happened next, when my grandfather was just about 10 years old, is a story he

would tell over and over again throughout the course of his life.

...