Pity poor Carnival Cruise Lines. First, an engine fire on their mega-ship Splendor leaves 3,300+ guests without electricity or working toilets or, GASP, hot food.
In comes the Coast Guard to save the day. The Calvary is here! They plop down a bountiful assortment of supplies. Ker-plunk! Among the accoutrements were PopTarts and croissants. And, of course, Spam …
Ah, Spam. Its reputation is far worse than even the notoriously low-rent Ramen noodles, which has the nutritional value of sawdust. And yet there it was on board a ship famed for its five-star dining. (Heck, I didn’t even know what Baked Alaska was until I got on a cruise ship.)
Late yesterday, Carnival released a very terse Tweet that said, “Despite media reports to the contrary, Carnival Splendor guests were never served Spam!” (I love the exclamation point at the end. It’s Carnival’s way of saying “so there!”) Oh sure, guests may have resorted to cannibalism, but, dammit, they did not partake of the inferior Spam.
I’ve never had Spam … so I really shouldn’t knock it. But does anyone else agree it resembles gelatinous road kill? It’s a by-product of pig intestines and sheep hooves, right? Oh, who knows? All I know is that meat should not be pressed in to unnatural cylindrical shapes.
Later in the day, a Carnival spokesperson told USA Today that while Carnival ordered provisions to be sent to the ship, it didn’t intend to get Spam. “We gave our food order to a supplier, not the Navy. The Navy kindly delivered the goods, (and) Spam was not on the list,” he says. “However, we told the supplier to substitute as necessary if they had difficulty getting everything we were requesting on very short notice and so that’s how the Spam ended up within the supplies that were delivered.”
Of course, there were no pictures of the croissants and PopTarts, but every media outlet showed cases and cases of Spam perched on the ship’s main deck. Now that’s rich!
I think if I were on that ship, I would have hung a fishing line over the deck and crossed my fingers.