A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [64]
One 10-to 12-pound uncooked Virginia ham (see Tip at left)
1¼ cups fairly fine soft white bread crumbs
1¼ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, melted (about)
2 tablespoons whole cloves (about)
1. Place the ham in the sink, cover with warm water, then, using a stiff brush, scrub off the ash, salt, and mold (this, by the way, is harmless). You’ll have to change the water several times as you scrub.
2. Rinse the ham well, then place in a large oval kettle, sawing off the hock if it won’t fit into the kettle. Cover the ham with cold water and soak overnight, changing the water two or three times. Next day, scrub the ham again and rinse well. Also wash the kettle.
3. Return the ham to the kettle, cover with cold water, set over moderate heat, and bring to a simmer. Drain the ham and rinse both it and the kettle.
4. Once again, place the ham in the kettle and cover with cold water. Set over moderate heat and bring to a simmer. Adjust the heat so the water barely trembles, cover the kettle, and cook the ham for 5 to 5½ hours or until fork-tender. To minimize the ham’s saltiness, change the cooking water every hour or so. Drain the ham well and chill overnight.
5. When ready to proceed, preheat the oven to 350° F. Remove the ham rind, then trim the outer layer of fat until no more than ¼ inch thick. If you have not sawed off the ham hock, do so now.
6. Combine the bread crumbs, brown sugar, corn syrup, and ground cloves in a large mixing bowl, then add the melted butter, mixing as you go, until the mixture holds together when pinched.
7. Pat the crumb mixture thickly and firmly over the ham, then, using a sharp knife, score in a diamond pattern, spacing the cuts about 1½ inches apart. Stud the center of each diamond with a whole clove.
8. Ease the ham into a large, shallow baking pan, and bake uncovered in the lower third of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until the crumb crust is golden brown.
9. Remove the ham from the oven and cool to room temperature. Carve into slices as thin as onion skin and serve. Note: This is the ham to slip into biscuits. Bite-size “ham biscuits” are routinely served at southern teas, open houses, and cocktail parties. Always at room temperature.
I went to the Mason City Café, Home-Cooked Meals for Ladies and Gents, facing the square, and sampled the mash potatoes and fried ham and greens with pot-likker.
—ROBERT PENN WARREN, ALL THE KING’S MEN
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1835
In Tidewater Virginia south of the James River, wheat replaces tobacco as the crop of choice.
1836
With ships docked six deep, New Orleans tops New York as America’s busiest port.
1837
The Picayune newspaper (today The Times-Picayune) begins publication in New Orleans. Over time, it’s praised for its coverage of local food and publishes its own cookbook.
1838
Thousands of Southern Cherokee, who’d shared their culinary and horticultural expertise with white settlers, are force-marched along “The Trail of Tears” into lands west of the Mississippi.
1839
Lettice Bryan’s Kentucky Housewife is published. It is an early American classic because, as Bill Neal notes in his introduction to the University of South Carolina Press facsimile edition (1991), “We learn from it not just one dish or another, but what foods were available in the 1830s [and] how women cooked.”
The cultivation of Key limes increases in Florida; they’re also a common dooryard fruit.