For most of the world, Spam is an icon of absurdist humor. The can, with its huge yellow letters on a dark blue background and a photo of the pink pressed meat, looks like a pop art parody of itself. At Spamarama in Austin, Texas, they hold a Spam cooking contest ever year where tongue-in-cheek contestants prepare inedible entrees like Moo Goo Gai Spam. There's also a Spam carving contest in Seattle.

But in one state of the Union, Spam is no joke. They have Spam cooking contests in Hawaii too, but with a difference -- there the contestants take the cooking seriously. Hawaiians eat Spam sushi for breakfast, they pack their bento boxes with Spam and rice for lunch and they eat grilled Spam with Hawaiian pineapple for dinner. There are many explanations for the popularity of Spam in the Hawaiian Islands. Some trace the beginnings of the phenomenon to World War II. During the war, the American military popularized Spam, serving it frequently to soldiers, sailors and base personnel. Others note that Spam kept well in the tropical climate at a time when refrigerators were scarce. But the war has been over for more than fifty years now. So why does Spam persist as such a Hawaiian favorite?

I got an insight into the mystery when I went to Sam Choy's restaurant on the big island of Hawaii. Sam Choy is one of Hawaii's most famous chefs. Sam's sister, Claire Choy whipped me up a Spam feast, I tried Spam in creamed corn, and Spam with homemade papaya marmalade. They tasted OK, for Spam, but I confessed to Claire that I still didn't get it--why Spam?

"Have you ever eaten poi?" Claire asked me.

"No," I had to admit. I knew that poi, a starchy staple made from ground taro root, had been Hawaii's most important food through much of its history, but I had also been warned that it tasted like sour wallpaper paste.

"Poi is like yogurt," Claire said philosophically. "It tastes bad all by itself. But when you combine it with other flavors, something happens." I tried some poi with pork and some poi with fish, and I had to admit the combinations tasted pretty good.

"Now try some poi with Spam," Claire directed. The salty, sweet, greasiness of the hot Spam was perfectly offset by the thick, starchy, sourness of the ice cold poi. It was even better than poi and pork or poi and fish. When I got over my disbelief, I took another mouthful of the culinary odd couple. Then I started to smile as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Spam isn't funny in Hawaii because its become a culinary tradition, like poi. And if the rest of world ate as much poi as Hawaiians do, they'd probably stop laughing and learn to love the canned meat themselves. Because nothing tastes better with ice cold poi than hot, crispy Spam.