My single greatest food memory from my childhood is my mother’s hams, which were only partly attributable to my mother, who did nothing much except choose wisely, then cook very slowly, overnight, in a super-low oven. Absolutely NO glaze or sauce or sweet goo of any kind. Just the ham, ma’am.
The secret was the ham itself. Which was whole, with rind, and encased in a huge amount of snowy fat which, when the ham was cooked very slowly overnight, tenderized and moisturized the ham so that it became meltingly tender and utterly exquisite.
I have been on a mission to find such a ham for the last 20 years. I have never come close. I have concluded that this is because hogs are too lean.
So has anyone here ever tasted Berkshire/Kurobata ham? Because I figure that’s my only hope of getting a ham anywhere near the hams mom used to make.
You’re probably right about the leanness of modern swine; I seem to recall reading somewhere that pigs in the 1970s and early 1980s were something like twice as fatty as today’s pigs, and that in many dishes where pork fat plays a major role, we’re suffering the consequences.
Have you had a country ham? They sound like something that might be up your alley.
The best ham I ever baked was a shank piece, grabbed out of the cooler in a crummy grocery store - who knew? Now I just buy a spiral ham, available everywhere.
I have friends visiting here from down south where they moved a couple years ago, and the first place they wanted to go was out to breakfast for ham and eggs. They said there’s nothing BUT Virginia ham where they live, and they think it’s just awful, dry and super salty. They want the water-injected piggy-pink stuff.
This is a bit of a tangent, since it’s not ham, but it is about some nice fatty pork. Keep in mind, I am far from being a good cook, but this “recipe” is foolproof and always leads to deliciousness.
Get some boneless pork country-style ribs* that have some good fat marbling to them, the more the better. Get yourself a slow-cooker/crockpot. Throw some other good stuff in there. I usually go with a can or two of good spicy chilli beans for that delicious pork&beans combo, but just about anything will work and will soak up the awesome flavor of the fatty goodness. If you add some sort of dry veggies/starches, get some secondary moisture in there, like some good mojo or other marinade type stuff. Let that sucker go at least a good six hours on the lowest setting.
Nom nom nom, I think I’m gonna go make some.
***** (This is really the key ingredient. Since you’re probably a way better cook than I am, you can probably disregard/improvise the rest. Just as long you cook those suckers slow and low, you can’t go wrong - you’ll get tender, juicy, fatty goodness.)
If I wanted a fattier ham, I’d be tempted to get a ham, and then sort of weave a bacon blanket to cover it, using toothpicks to anchor the ends of the bacon.
Sounds like you need to find a farmers’ market near you. Chat a few of them up, tell 'em what you’re after. There must be someone out there raising hogs in an old fashioned way…
Eek, no. Country hams are extremely salty and low in moisture – so much so that they’re shelf-stable. You have to soak them in numerous changes of water just to make them edible. It would be like roasting a whole Proscuitto.
I mean, country ham is lovely… in small doses. And unless you can find a specialty shop that sells cuts, they’re also enormous. They give rise to the saying, “forever is two people and a ham.”
Salinq and Hello have it right. I got sucked into the country ham delusion… UGH UGH UGH. It is actually the complete reverse of what I am looking for. Nasty stuff.
Yeah, no, doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t get down into it… The genuinely fatty ham has fat all through, it’s not just the lovely outer wrapping.
I know nothing about any of this…thanks for the tips! let the investigation begin!
Serrano is in the same family as proscuitto and VA country ham. Dry, smoked, salted, and served shaved thin.
Maybe you could have some luck talking to a pork producer at a farmer’s market. They might have fattier, better marbled stock, or even be able to grow you your own porky piggie.
This website will sell you a 16 lb ham for $135.00. The ham was cut from heritage breed pork. Seems kind of pricy but might get you a little farther along in your search.
Really, is it because heart disease strikes after our breeding years that our species has survived? Because melting the pig fat into the meat really sounds good. And I have dibs on at least one rasher, with combined bacony and hammy goodness.
Aside: Consumer Reports, normally a most responsible publication, once compared bacons. The first paragraph was an apology and an explanation, which was basically, “But it’s BACON!”
Another aside: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has stopped trading in pork belly futures, but not because bacon will eventually kill you. It’s that Just In Time manufacturing has struck the bacon industry and nobody stores frozen pork bellies anymore. Porky and Petunia become ham and bacon right away, not at some future date.
Just last week we butchered our first hog. I now have a freezer full of pork including fresh (not cured) hams. Our pig was definitely fattier than commercial, and as a consequence, tastes much better.
I cooked a ham on Thursday with a dry rub of black pepper and basted in 7up (as per my grandmother’s instruction. 12 lbs, cooked in an electric roaster set on 260 for 12 hours. Best ham I’ve had since I was a kid.
You might also contact a few meat markets in your area and see if they have fresh ham.
IIRC, a fresh ham is just a hind leg of pork. It still needs at least some minimal processing to become what Americans mean by the word ham. Cook a fresh ham and what you have is a nice pork roast.
