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¼ teaspoon black pepper

½ cup orange marmalade blended with 2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard (glaze)

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F. Coat a 9 × 5 × 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. Place all ingredients except the last (the glaze) in a large bowl and mix thoroughly, using your hands. Scoop into the pan, packing firmly and mounding slightly in the center.

3. Bake in the lower third of the oven for 40 minutes. Spread the glaze on top, reduce the oven temperature to 350° F., and bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until nicely browned and an instant-read meat thermometer thrust into the middle of the loaf registers 165° F.

4. Let the ham loaf rest for 20 minutes in the upright pan on a wire rack, then loosen around the edge with a thin-blade spatula and ease onto a heated platter.

5. Turn right side up, slice, and serve. Or if you prefer, chill well and serve cold.

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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine

1840

Antoine’s opens in New Orleans, first as a boardinghouse, but soon as an elegant restaurant. It remains open today.

More than 200 riverboats now ply the Mississippi, some of them luxury liners serving fine cuisine.

Captain Samuel F. Flood finds pecans floating at sea and his wife plants them on their property in St. Marys, Georgia. Those trees bore heavily over the years and their nuts and shoots were distributed all over the South.

1840s

Peanuts become a commercial crop in Virginia.

In addition to her household duties, the southern farmer’s wife tends the kitchen garden, the chicken coop, and dairy; churns the butter; smokes the meat; and bakes the bread.

1846

The son of a French planter and a slave, Paris-educated engineer-inventor Norbert Rillieux patents his new time-saving, cost-saving, and risk-saving method of refining sugar in New Orleans.

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SOUR CREAM–DILL SAUCE

MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP

¾ cup sour cream

¼ cup finely snipped fresh dill

2 tablespoons mayonnaise (use “light,” if you like)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon well-drained small capers

1 tablespoon milk or as needed to thin to the consistency of medium white sauce

1. Whisk all ingredients together in a small, nonreactive bowl.

2. Transfer to a sauceboat and serve with the Mustard-Glazed Ham Loaf that precedes. Or serve as an accompaniment to boiled or baked ham.

TENNESSEE COUNTRY HAM AND HOMINY HASH

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

Blackberry Farm, one of America’s most luxurious country inns, is about a half-hour drive east of Knoxville, Tennessee, just where the Smokies rise out of the foothills. Its gifted chef is John Fleer, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, who has developed what he calls “Foothills Cuisine” to showcase the local bounty. Among his signature dishes is this rib-sticking hash, which I enjoyed while there. Note: The hominy you want for this recipe is “big” or whole hominy, not cooked grits, which some Southerners also call hominy. Tip: If country ham is unavailable in small amounts where you live (it often is outside of the South), substitute domestic prosciutto or failing that, Italian prosciutto. Both work well in this recipe. You’ll need one slice about ¼ inch thick (approximately four ounces).

3 tablespoons butter

3 medium potatoes, peeled, diced, and blanched in hot water (about 1 pound)

1 medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1 small green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced

1 small celery rib, trimmed and diced

1 tablespoon minced fresh jalapeño pepper

¾ cup finely diced country ham (see Tip above)

2 cups drained, cooked hominy or one One 15-ounce can whole hominy, drained (see Note above)

Salt and black pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon finely snipped fresh chives

1. Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over moderately high heat and when it froths, add the potatoes and fry for 8 to 10 minutes or until crisp and brown.

2. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery, jalapeño, and ham and fry, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until the vegetables