Both those things are perfectly normal to me, and not “poor” food.
Eating the spam without needing to parse it out over a (cheap) carb is actually quite not poor.
And bread and butter is a delicious treat. And a completely different one with varying bread (and butter).
Then again, “cucina povera” can become trendy too, and then it’s all good.
Presumably neither of which was your roommate’s (or anyone’s) personal choice.
I bought them because they were a deal and still Vienna. Got back to California and gave some as travel gifts. Everyone loved them. My dad went to Chicago later…and had to make a stop.
re: cold hot dogs… school friend use to get cut up hot dog sandwiches. Being grade school he was mocked a bit…then he laid it down, it’s the same as baloney. He was right.
Hot dogs in foil is classic road trip food…if you put the dogs in the engine compartment to heat up.
For him it was poor food, especially when you’re swiping butter packets from restaurants.
It isn’t necessarily poor food in the absolute sense, but in this context it was.
Not sure why that was so important to point out when the food itself was not weird.
I keep a couple cans of SPAM in our power outage box-o-food. I would hope I could fry it over a butane stove or my outdoor rocket stove, but if I couldn’t – I’d eat it straight out of the can.
I’ll admit I’ve only had spam once or twice and didn’t care for it even as an ingredient (in musubi, presumably), bc I find it inedibly salty. Do you put mustard or ketchup on it to alleviate the sawltiness at all?
When the power goes out, I try not to open the fridge.
The last time the power went out, I cubed and fried the SPAM (butane stove), then boiled some pasta and mixed it all together with a jar of Ragu.
We had tap water and ate by battery powered lantern.
It was a hot meal and we were full. It really wasn’t that bad.
Desperate times require desperate measures 
Unless it was pouring down rain and I couldn’t cook outside – and I was out of butane, I can put together a hot meal.
I’ve got plenty of wood cut up for my outdoor rocket stove and I’ve got plenty of food in the power outage box.
It seems most of the power outages (here) happen in Summer, I can only assume the demand for Air Conditioning overwhelms the grid.
But – we are ready. Sunshine seems to find good times – no matter the circumstances.
Vienna sausage in the stash food here I’ve never had them cooked, or even warmed. They were what we ate while fishing. (Poles, not reels).
Mustard and ketchup are loaded with salt too.
That may well be the case, but there’s significantly more sugar in ketchup than there is salt, which is why I require a hot dog Ima eat to ideally have both on it.
A hot dog on its own is inedible to me, and I like salt.
Wow! As if hot dogs weren’t salty enough already.
Does sound a little intense
Doesn’t look like they’re going to be available for retail sale, at least for starters.
Is the Spam dog’s 660mg of sodium a lot for a dog?
I just looked up Sabrett’s and they are 550mg, which may be a lot for all i know.
I would give a Spam dog a try.
I found a new appreciation for Spam after it turned up in two dishes i have come to love, Budae Jjigae and Musubi.
I’ve only tried it a couple of times — once a bite as is, another time was musubi. I still find it insufferably salty, and I am 50% salt.
But then I can’t really eat any regular hotdog without smothering it in ketchup, mustard and raw onions, either — just to complement the insane amount of sodium.
I usually am a bit salt averse. I do not use it often so even a little is noticeable. But I like Spam now. I am not sure why, probably simply because I like it when it is in a “stew” or served with a lot of rice.
I just looked up Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and they are in the 400 to 480mg range depending on the photo of the label. Nathan’s Pretzel dog has 1020mg but it is a pretzel dog.
So Spam dogs are up there in saltiness.
When confronted with a lot of salt, in a stew or in a hot dog, I usually counter with spice, Gochujang and kimchi for the Budae Jjigae, or hot mustard for the dog, or brat. Though sauerkraut tends to lessen the impact of salt for me too, so mustard and sauerkraut on that Spam dog, please!
