Never had country ham. I suspect its probably a lot like what my great Grand parents on the Drewniak side would make.

Looked at a place called Benton's country ham. They are 80 bucks or so. Not sure if that includes shipping.



Do the locals in Country Ham country eat a lot of this stuff? Can you get it much cheaper than that?


Is it considered a delicacy?


The mass produced hams we get are under 2 bucks a pound.


Just curious.

As to the title, is it in Ireland?

Drier, more salty, kinda more...solid.


Talking salt cured, smoked. Like my grandparents did them.

Not the dehydrated in salt hams from Virginia.

Good catch.

We eat a lot of country ham. We also have a lot of heart surgeries. My wife likes to boil an entire country ham. It is delicious that way, as well as sliced and fried. If you like salty, smoky meat, you’ll love it.

we eat country ham form time to time. We usually fry it in coke, it takes a little of the salt out and gives it a little sweet taste. You wind up with a sweet and salty state.

It seems awful expensive.


Must be some cheaper options locally?

Every country ham I've had was too salty for my tastes. You've gotta offset the salt with something like a biscuit, and you don't eat a lot of it, not like regular ham.

The wife washes the ham sliced to reduce salt before cooking. She likes to cook in
“ red eye gravy “! Very good!

Not the Irish! Lol.

Jim- I doubt it includes shipping. The hams ain’t huge, but not small either. Maybe 15-20#’s? Also being cured, there is very little moisture to them. They are quite hard and dry. Many folks soak them before trying to slice and cook.

Lots of folks with good country hams, Benton is definitely one of the best. Super nice folks behind the counter. Call them up and see if they’ve a minute for some questions.

Jim, here's a little tutorial about how one smokehouse makes country ham:

http://dardenscountrystore.com/HamminItUp.html


My wife went to school with the woman who runs it with her husband. We got the tour of the smokehouse, it was pretty cool. New York Times did a big write-up on 'em about 10 years ago.

Interesting fact, they coat the hams with black pepper while they're smoking, to keep bugs off. IIRC, they told us the black pepper was one of their biggest expenses, they use a ton of it.

My family never smoked them. Just hand rubbed in curing salt, & rubbed some more. Dad, my mom's dad, dad's sister, neighbors, the whole bunch cured the same. They all dreaded doing it as their hands would get so raw.

Put inside a heavy paper sack & hung for about a year. That might indicate the expense of one that's properly done. A big slice cooked med-rare in cast iron & country eggs fried in the ham grease might be the best breakfast there is.

I’ve always soaked them overnight, discarded the water and with fresh water bring it to a boil then let it soak for a few hours before putting it in the oven. I don’t know what my ex MIL did, but being too salty was never a problem….country ham is the best…

Google "Smithfield country ham"... it was the Gold Standard forever. At least for us Virginians

IMHO... shave as thin as possible (often called chipping)... amazing stuff... on top of biscuits and gravy... chipped beef... grilled cheese sandwiches... you use VERY LITTLE... VERY THIN and VERY LITTLE...

Hell, looking at an ice cream maker here in the corner... I would make bacon or country ham ice cream even. The salt/Sodium is a killer... be careful or your BP will jack.

A dried ham will last for months...

Smithfield bought by China 3 or so years ago.

https://www.myrecipes.com/extracris...any-three-years-ago-has-anything-changed

Hell... China owns everything anymore... your bourbon is probably owned by China... fugg I hate that...

Eat it at Waffle House about once a month!

Tasty but not good for you.


Mike

Try and find a grocery store and buy a pound shaved/chipped as thin as a rolling paper. Jungle Jims in Ohio used to do that for me. Your family will go bonkers... or not... then buy a leg... or make your own... might be some money in it for you?

Huh. That's interesting.

Yeah, I like it in small doses but when I buy a whole ham I find that I can't eat a bunch of it.

They can be salty depending on how they're cured. I love it that way but not allot. This place is not far from me https://www.smokehouse.com/ham.html. Yep high priced stuff but good. The walmarts around here had them in their stores some time ago but I have no idea now. An ambitious person could grow their own hogs and cure the hams themselves as what was once common. When I was a kid we cured some with sugar. Those were good too.

I buy this brand of sliced ham at the local grocery. My mom boiled country hams then baked them. I rinse the sliced then cook them. Frying the slices in a bit of black coffee is good.

A real country ham is every bit as good as an Italian Speck! Just like Speck, it get's better with age, with a year being about minimum and 2 years being prime. I'm gonna make a couple and set them up like Capicola, in a rack with a towel draped over it so I can slice a little off whenever I walk by.

Jim, you could certainly handle making your own.

I forgot about that...

Red Eye Gravy... google it.

I can see that...

Benton hams are in Madisonville Tennessee, I don’t like country ham,but they also have some of the best bacon you will ever eat

Here's a vid on making your own from UK. The basic technique works with many cuts of hog.

I love it with fried, runny eggs.

I like it raw

Buddy in Colorado made his own. He was a nerdy fella, Professor of microbiology at CSU, he got way into it.

They’d hang in his basement for months and months. Some were pretty damn good. He didn’t smoke them though.

I love country ham but don't like Smithfield brand at all.

My favorite is turner hams from Fulks Run, VA followed by kites from over in Madison County.

For sure, I always eat as much raw as ends up in the bean pot

https://foothillscountryham.com/

Good stuff! I “fry” it in water to get some of the salt out. About once every couple of months or so is enough. As said Country ham will put your BP through the roof.

We NEVER cook a whole have, that’s what fuggin picnic shoulders are for. (My opinion)

We alwaya get our’s sliced up and then I clean-scrape the marrow, trim the bone and rind. I put up 2 this last month

Repackage it in vac seal food saver bags 2-3 slices at a time

Country ham is for breakfast around here.

Holy crap. Feeding an army?

Mrs slumlord eats a lot of country ham, she has too. Her blood pressure runs about 80 over 60

it’s therapeutic for her 😃😂

This...PaPa's meat house was a cinder block building under a huge Water Oak. He used a lot of salt, pepper and some brown sugar. Seems like we would rub the hams for days but as kids didn't mind because we knew Granny would be making us some fresh crackling. That is the best breakfast ever! No 2 slices were the same when PaPa cut it off the bone! Still love it but I am about the only one who eats it here now. Soaking in water does remove a lot of the salt but it doesn't taste as good.
Most places that sale it whole also sale individual slices if your not sure you will like it.

I do as well in small portions & thought that the threat of trichinosis was gone for the most part. But I've I've been recently told that it's still around.

I wonder how the Spaniards & Portuguese keep from getting it. Raw cured ham a big time delicacy there I think.

Slum,

That's how we do it too. Love fried country ham.


We bake a boneless one a couple times of year too to put on the slicer for sandwiches/ biscuits

Broadbent Farms in central Kentucky sells some of the best country ham I've had, since a neighbor in middle Tennessee in the town where I grew up passed on. He routinely won "Grand Champion Ham" at the Tennessee state fair in the 1960's and 70's. Broadbent's whole hams average around $10.00 a pound plus UPS shipping, $159.00 for a 15-17 pound ham, according to their website. If you buy a whole ham, you would need to have a local butcher cut it into approximately 1/4" thick slices with a band saw. Once sliced, vacuum pack the meat with a Food Saver and freeze it. Smoked, salt cured hams will keep for several months in a cool, dry environment without refrigeration. That's why hams and other cuts of meat were cured before the days of refrigeration. Whittle off a few slices, and wrap what's left in a piece of burlap or a flour sack. "Hog-killing time" was usually around the first frost of the year, and meat was salt cured and smoked so it would last over the winter. Washing the meat before cooking gets rid of the bone chips created by the butcher's band saw and removes a lot of the salt. I cook it in a cast iron skillet and use a saucepan lid to cover the meat with a few drops of water underneath to steam-tenderize it.

"Sugar cured ham" is a fairly recent invention, and spoils very quickly unless it's kept refrigerated constantly. A few generations ago that was simply not an option. Beef, venison, and buffalo jerky was another way of preserving meat in pre-refrigeration times.

For most folks, buying sliced is the way to go. Dealing with a whole cured ham that’s hard as a rock ain’t terribly easy.

That looks amazing!

Thanks... I'll check out "Turner hams from Fulks Run, VA followed by Kites from over in Madison County".

Lots of country ham made and consumed around here. It is typically a breakfast staple, and often put on a biscuit. I’ve eaten it all my life and love it. This past summer I heated some up on the grill and I really liked it that way. I’d bet a dollar that Carolinians eat more of it than the other regions of the country.

A ham biscuit is about the best thing ever. The winning ham at the state fair this year (from Broadbent's) sold for 4.8 million bucks.

https://www.wlky.com/article/grand-...-at-kentucky-state-fair-auction/37405195

I wish I could find a picture of the ham exhibit at the Missouri Stare Fair. 8’ tall shelves. Hams on 1’ centers all the way around the room. Hundreds of them.

$50/plate will get you a ticket to the Ham breakfast though.

https://www.mostatefair.com/governors-ham-breakfast/

Dang- - - - - -that better be some really good ham to be worth over 500 bucks a bite!

I tried one a few years ago, it was cured by coating it salt and hung in a shed for a year in Kentucky. You were supposed to soak it in a 5 gal bucket of clean water for a few hours, I soaked it in clean water twice. It was still too salty for me, but ok other than that. If I did it again I would soak it and change the water out 4-5 times. It was interesting.

If I remember correctly, didn't you get a place in pendleton County?

If you come over through the Dayton or bridgewater area you can grab some kites from the Dayton farmers market. The meat counter
has it already baked and sliced thin for sandwiches. Pretty sure the grocery store in bridgewater sells it that way too, I know they have whole kites hams.

I'd be curious to hear how you like it compared to other hams

Pretty sure you need to go to fulks run for a turner ham but it's worth it. Friday they have fried ham sandwiches made to order. Let me know when you are in the neighborhood and I'll meet you there and buy us lunch.

Jim. Go ahead and try it

Bentons is just a couple miles down the highway from me

They are a legit old school smokehouse. You walk out smelling like smoked meat. It’s not a big factory Bet the whole place ain’t 5000 sq ft. It’s a mom and pop shop. Still doing things the old fashioned way

Have shot guns with the owner twice. He is a very nice man.

There bacon is too salty and Smokey for me for eating plain. But cooking with it is amazing. Most people love it though. Lots of high end restaurants buy it apparently

There country ham is top notch.

It’s gonna be salty. That’s why you soak it and bring water to a boil. To reduce the saltiness. Then it’s amazing!!!

The curing process destroys trichinosis and all other harmful pathogens.

While it may be a bit salty, that can be fixed with an application of Duke's.

Check out Ricecountryhams.com , located in Tennessee, they cure the hams the old fashion way .

I should go up to our old smokehouse behind Mammy’s place here on the farm. The ham and salt boxes are still in there. Get some pics.

Probably a gazillion brown recluse spiders in there 🥴😕🙁

No ham boxes in my smokehouse. I just smoke.

I need to get a medium size Porky from the Mennonites and then get my father in law to walk me thru a hamming cure

If you like ham, you will love it. Benton is one of the best and none of them are cheap.

Thanks Tyrone. I was thinking that but have had folk swear you can still get it from country ham. Think they may not quite know what true cured ham is.

When I was growing up, dad would have some of the prettiest burgundy colored cured hams you could ask for & I didn't like it. Well, not the way my poor mom would cook it. She was deathly scared if trichinosis & fried those big pretty slices into a complete shoe sole.
It was when I got away from home & had some cooked medium rare that I realized how good it was.

F


Basically, if you like cured smoked bacon, odds you'll most likely like country cured ham, too, but would probably be best if you (and family) tried a little first before buying a whole ham. It is sold prepackaged under a good many different commercial brand names in various portion sizes and quantities, like 'ham steaks', 'biscuit' cuts, 'seasoning' cuts, etc. If you like it well enough to buy a whole one, unless you have access to commercial grade meat slicer / band saw, I'd strongly recommend buying it already sliced. Also, unless you're a salt freak I'd also strongly suggest you at least rinse off slices well before frying or adding to other dishes as seasoning. Frying it in a little Cola is pretty tasty as well, too. I generally buy it in prepackaged 'biscuit' cuts and eat it fried in a little cola or Dr. Pepper type soda then eat it on biscuits. Sometimes I sop the biscuit halves in the leftover pan drippings. DO NOT over cook...

Reading the Little House in the big woods book, I wondered how hams could hang from the rafters, and not spoil.

It really doesn't spoil unless it gets wet. It can get moldy, but you wash that off with vinegar. Other than that, it could get too dry for your taste, but it wouldn't be inedible, you'd just have to re-hydrate it as you cut pieces off.

I don't know how anybody could resist it long enough to prove this, but I imagine that like pemmican, ham would still be good 50 years later.

I would not take that bet, it's available at virtually any place that serves breakfast in NC. Almost everybody had a ham or two hanging in their basement or garage when I grew up, it is a staple, especially in the mountains.

Ed Rice (Sr.) is the guy I was talking about who won the Tennessee State Fair ham competition on a regular basis in the 1960's. His sons took over the business when he passed on, and they would all be in their 70's or older now.

Same here

Years ago when I lived in the eats,we called them Virginia cured .They were very salt and needed soaked before cooking.We would see them hanging from the eaves of roadside shops. Quite a few years ago, I traveled to Huntsville, AL and had some .,just like I remembered .Salty as all get out. These Smithfield hams we get are not as salty and most smoked cured hams I have bought are not either.

Nothing finer than a slice of country ham, 2 eggs over medium and a plate of grits with red eye gravy for breakfast. It also makes a fine sandwich on toast with mayo and a thin slice of tomato.
This past May, I was in Richmond VA, for my daughter's wedding. After the wedding, I spent about 3 weeks at home in the Wilmington, NC area. While I was there, I gorged myself on seafood, barbecue pork sandwiches and country ham breakfasts.
When I headed out on the drive back to ND, I had 2 gallons of freshly shucked oysters, packed in ice, in the trunk of the car. Just outside the town of Maxton, NC, I stopped at this little fruit stand, I had been doing business with for more than 20 yrs. and loaded up on boiled peanuts and country ham.
The boiled peanuts lasted me almost all the way back to Williston, ND and I divided the oysters and ham with a Sioux friend of mine who lives out on the prairie, northeast of Poplar, MT.
I'm still eating on the country ham. I save it for special occasions, when I can sit down and savor it.

Start with a Clifty Farm ham if you’ve never had country ham. They are about $2 a pound at the local grocery stores here.

They aren’t what the old folks had in their smokehouse, but for the price, they aren’t bad.

Next time you have a nice bit of ham, try my Dad's favorite sandwich: white bread, ham, and grape jelly. Salty and sweet go so well together you'll appreciate this combo a lot. Strawberry or blackberry jam work just as well.

Soak it in water for at least a day and change the water out several times prior to cooking it.

I’ve always had it baked in a roasting pan. A piece cut off while it’s still hot is absolute heaven. Cold and on a biscuit is pretty damn good too. Especially on a sweet potato biscuit.

I've done that many times - very good.

I’ve seen them hang for several years in an attic, covered in green/yellow mold

Not a dayum thing with them.

There are a couple of varieties of bugs that will eat into a country ham around the hip joint area. Short of that, a properly cured ham will last a long time if left hanging and not cut.

its good for cooking with something else. makes great bean soup or ham and cabbage, etc. i don't go out of my way for them but i have been given them before. real salty and dense so its not to my liking just cooked like a ham steak. if you got BP problems you better double your dose.

Skippers?

That's what I remember my grandfather worrying about when they killed hogs and hung meat. They used some pink salt and regular salt then black pepper. He would smoke some but not all of it. It ended up wrapped in cheese cloth or back then in plant bed cloth. Don't remember any of the details being very young.

Still love it but don't eat it nearly as much as we did growing up.

I cured ours for a while. As stated, they are salty. We made our own. bacon, too. cured with salt and sugar, then cold smoked with apple wood in a setup I made from an antique refrigerator. Going to build a real good smokehouse here on the farm this year or next, and we will be back in the bacon. You can’t get good bacon at the store. Ham either.

Country ham varies by region.
What most are talking about (Virginia hams) are cured in dry salt.
Pretty much mummified.


Our country hams l(and bacon) were cured with a salt brine in a wooden barrel.
Enough salt dissolved to cause a dime sized piece of egg to float
above the water. Can't remember how long they soaked.

Pulled out, dried off for a day, then smoked with hickory.
Hams and bacon were left hanging in the smokehouse,
you went out and hacked off what you wanted.

All butchering was done in late fall, early winter.

The cured meats would get mold by spring, and sometimes
maggots near the joint. It was just cut off, the rest was fine to eat.
Not sure how long into summer th ey would keep, it didn't matter.
This was about curing meat to have it when you wanted it, through
the winter. Come summer, there was a lot more food available.

Cracker Barrel will sell you a small quantity of their version of country ham.

It ain’t bad.

I love country ham. I buy one every year before Christmas and have it sliced. Country ham on a good homemade biscuit is real treat, especially with a bit of blackberry jam.

Straight out of the bag, they're too salty for my taste. Love 'em, though. I usually soak them a bit before cooking as part of the trim process. Then slice and store. Typically pan fry for cooking.


As slum said, they are for breakfast.

Kentucky Gun Company sells packaged country ham, it isn't cheap, but you can try a small amount before committing to a whole ham. Hardee's Restaurants used to sell country ham biscuits (and probably still do), or their Carl's Jr. stores out West.

Here's a link to Kygunco's website.

https://www.kygunco.com/category/meats-and-gourmet/baked-country-ham


My grandfather's country ham was the best I've ever eaten, maybe because Grandma fried the slices in a cast iron skillet on an old woodstove in the kitchen. I was too young to pay attention to how he cured them, sadly enough. He did all his own hog butchering.

Italian Hillbillies like ham too.

I let a country ham hang for 2 years one time and it got way to salty and tuff to eat as it was so I ground it up in a food processor and made ham salad out of it. That turned out very well.

I would smoke my hams with cat piss flavored sagebrush. Cause I’m from Out West and I think I’m a know-it-all bad ass that lives in a tin shed and pulls my internet off of the ionosphere.


How do some of you foucks say that with a straight face??? 😃🤣


And I don’t get my sagebrush smoking shake from no Walmarts either..I bag it myself. Herrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

😂😂😂!

That's BS.

There's no such thing as cat piss flavored sagebrush. The closest thing would be dog sh*t flavored sage.

Can you get to a Carl's Jr.? Drive thru the window and order a country ham biscuit. That'll give you an idea whether you like it or not without dropping a wad of money.

Just buy the damn ham

Biggin will eat it, or find a way regardless

🤣🤣

Benton Hams is just up the road from where my dad grew up. It is the real deal, but not cheap. They will gladly give you a tour of the place too. Nice folks.

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.

We put country ham in our pintos when cooking. No need to add salt. If we get a whole ham it’s soaked several times with the water being changed out. A salt cured country ham is so much different than a sugar cured ham. We prefer the salt cured, but I’ll eat both.

One ham I love at Christmas is a Cumberland Gap whole ham. Not a sugar ham and not a salty one either.

Uhh...not that I am aware of. Carl's Jr?

We often do the same thing when making pintos. They make a great combination. I still say that country ham is best served on a biscuit.

Sounds right.

Salt curing in a cooler for preservation....That's how country folks had to do it.

Mmmmmm Carl's Jr.

Haha! Yeah...we dont have anything like that here.

You really should come visit the United States some time. It's really nice here.

They do have a "Western Bacon Cheeseburger" on their menu. It's pretty damn good.

Hahaha!

The mail gets here three days a week.

We thought we were pretty lucky to have it.

Hardee's?

LOL! You ever been to town, Jim?

I just looked it up.

There is one 150 miles away!


Are they pretty good?

Hell yeah they're good, load up the Suburban and get going!

Their breakfast is actually pretty good, for fast food. Try a ham biscuit if you are ever around one.

Not that good. Just greasy fast food. They do have a country ham biscuit though. If you're ever close, it would be worth a try.

Even up here they would have the hammy biskit?

I could mail you a few.

I was just thinking about the possibility of mailing him a shrink wrapped package of sliced ham.

A very generous member here is sending me some to try.

Send him a big ol' center slice and red-eye gravy instruction. He'll never be the same.
Reckon he has access to grits?

He’s probably got a bag of corn and a wood chipper.

I haven't tried making them yet...all I could find was instant grits.



Acceptable?

Yep.

Oh, Fug!

This ain't a de-rail.
It's a whole new train!

Might as well add beans and Miracle Whip!😁

Sure. Add salt and butter. I make them with milk instead of water.

Yessir
How about redeye gravy?

Unknown in these parts.

I assume that there are as many recipes for red-eye gravy, each the "right" one, as there are people who make it.?

It's too simple to have too many recipes. It's made by deglazing the frying pan with coffee.

I'm so very sorry....

I'm honestly not a big fan of any I have had. I would much rather just have ham and biscuits and eggs. Maybe a sliced tomato.

We're gonna make a redneck out of you yet. How do you feel about sausage gravy and cathead biscuits?

Dont know what a cat head biscuit is....but biscuits and gravy is a nice treat.

They are biscuits not made with a biscuit cutter so all odd shaped.

More like hand rolled and plopped in/on a pan so irregular shaped

We always called them cat head biscuits, Don't know why but that is what everyone in my neck of the woods called them

Carl's Jr. doesn't serve ham biscuits or fried chicken as the Hardees I've been to in Virginia do. Out here the regional side of their menu is Tex Mex.

Had to go to Waffle House for lunch!
As the late great Jerry Clower would say, “ y’all done flung a cravin’ on me!”



It was delicious!

I saw this ^, & started going oh, oh, oh while grabbing my phone. Wife still at the grocery!

A pack is incoming.

I hope your blood pressure is under control!!

I'm over a half century old, never added even a tea spoon of salt to my food in my entire life, but love Country Ham...

Big 'ol one eyed, split ear Tom cat out by the barn. Look the head on him. About 4 or 5" in diameter. Cat Head.

Have had to splain that to a few waitresses so they could explain to me how big their biscuits are before I order.

I can eat a half slice of ham, 3 eggs, & 2 biscuits w/gravy unless they's cat heads & then I only order one.

LIKE

Carl's Jr's Tex Mex commercials were the best...