Island Confidential: Musubi is pronounced moo-soo-BEE

From Jane Reads:

What is a Musubi (pronounced moo-soo-BEE)?
There was a time, back when I was living on the mainland (more properly referred to as the Continental United States) when I, too, had never heard of a Spam musubi. In fact, I wouldn’t have dreamed of eating Spam. I thought of it as meat particleboard, a composite of unspeakable animal parts.
Then I moved to Hawaii, where I observed people eating these things that looked like gigantic pieces of sushi. Behold, the Spam musubi:

Musubi = rice snack. #Musubi #Murder = Hawaii’s first campus crime novel. http://bit.ly/1J51j3O #fridayreads #CR4U http://pic.twitter.com/8ERFjzLqcb
— Frankie Bow (@Frankie_Bow) August 14, 2015
I discovered a few things:
1) A Spam musubi is not sushi. It’s a local adaptation of the Japanese o-musubi, which is a rice ball often included in kids’ lunches. The reason it doesn’t properly count as sushi is that sushi is made with vinegared rice , while the rice in a Spam musubi is plain.
2) Spam is not a composite of unspeakable spare parts. Spam is shoulder pork and ham. Original Spam has only six ingredients, fewer than a typical package of hot dogs.
3) When at last I was persuaded to try a Spam musubi, I discovered that Spam was surprisingly delicious. (I am aware of the problems of factory farming. If there were a sustainable version of Spam, using humanely raised, non-environmentally-destructive pork, I would happily pay extra for it. Someone, get on this business idea!)
4) Spam comes in flavors!

Bacon is my favorite. Black pepper is a close second.