Jim,
When Eileen and I made a 2-month trip around the U.S. in 1985, when we had more time than money (the vehicle was a 1965 Dodge pickup with a rebuilt 318 V8, with a slide-in camper and a canoe on top of the camper), one of the things we wanted to try was Southern "country ham." We bought some and fried slices. As others have reported, it was VERY salty, to the point of being inedible.
Turned out the basic technique for cooking it was to boil it in water to "freshen" it, removing a lot of the salt, before doing anything else. Dunno if that's still true, but the folks we visited then all suggested that technique. We only drove about 150 miles day during our trip across the Southeast, so it appears to have been common.
Sounds right.
