How Spam and Chocolate Became America’s Secret Weapons in WWII

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 817 Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, when American troops left for war, they carried reminders of home that came in the simplest form: food. Spam and Hershey’s chocolate became symbols of comfort in a world that had lost its sense of safety. Spam filled mess kits and fueled long marches through mud and heat. Hershey’s chocolate brought a quick burst of sweetness that could steady a soldier’s nerves or break the monotony of rations. Together they fed the body and the spirit, helping to turn familiar tastes into a quiet kind of strength that followed the American army wherever it went.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an I-Heart podcast.
0:14.3	And we return to our American stories.
0:17.9	Up next, the story of how Spam and Hershey's Chocolate became the most recognizable pieces of the American stories. Up next, the story of how Spam and Hershey's Chocolate became the most
0:22.5	recognizable pieces of the American soldiers' diet during World War II. Here to tell the story as
0:29.0	writer and school teacher, Anne. Take it away, Anne. They say an army marches on its stomach,
0:36.7	and with millions of Americans serving in the Second World War, there were plenty of stomachs to be kept fed.
0:43.3	Now, of course, there were a number of ways the U.S. accomplished this, but today I'd like to just take a minute and look at the really interesting history behind two very different staples.
0:59.4	Spam and chocolate.
1:07.1	So let's start with a little bit of history of spam.
1:11.6	Spam's history goes way back to 1937, during the later half of the Great Depression.
1:17.6	The Hormel Meat Company of Austin, Minnesota, spearheaded by the founder's son, Jay, was looking for ways to expand their fresh meat business into canned goods.
1:30.4	Now, this took some trial and error to make something palatable that they could also can,
1:35.8	but eventually, he successfully produced a moist canned meat made from pork shoulder.
1:42.8	They did a little contest to try and figure out a good
1:45.8	name for this new product, and the company VP's brother won the honor and christened the new
1:52.0	product spam. Now, the timing really couldn't have been better because, of course, in 1937, you have the hostilities of the Second World War really starting to escalate in Europe, and the war officially began in 1939.
2:13.6	Now, around that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Lend Lease Act.
2:19.8	And the Lend Lease Act was kind of a way for the U.S. to be involved in the war without really being involved in the war.
2:30.1	FDR promised to support Allied powers by lending them or leasing them certain supplies.
2:39.0	For instance, food or shipping and things like that, while still technically remaining neutral.
2:48.7	Now, this meant that there was a lot of food being shipped overseas, lots of
2:52.8	different goods being sent to Britain and then to the USSR once they became an allied country.
	...

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