Ham to Fry
Cut the slices quite thin, remove the skin, put them into a hot spider and turn frequently until a little brown; be very careful not to burn the slices; when done serve in hot dish.
A three-line recipe that assumes you know your ham. The only real decisions are the pan, the thickness of the slice, and knowing when to stop.
- What a spider isA spider was originally a cast-iron frying pan on three legs, made to stand over hearth coals; by 1900 the word simply meant a heavy skillet. Use cast iron or another heavy pan that holds steady heat.
- No added fatThe recipe calls for a hot spider and never mentions butter or lard. A fatty cured slice renders enough of its own fat to fry in, and extra fat tends to make the ham greasy and encourages scorching.
- Thin means thinAim for about 1/8 inch. At that thickness the slices cook through in two to three minutes a side and the edges curl and brown; a half-inch steak will toughen before it colours.
- The hinge: heat and attentionCured ham is salty, and if sugar-cured it browns and then burns quickly, which is why the recipe warns against burning. Medium heat, frequent turning, and pull the slices while they are still supple.
- Which hamA recipe of this period may well assume a dry-salt-cured country ham, which is far saltier than modern wet-cured supermarket ham. If you use true country ham, soak or blanch the slices first; ordinary sliced ham needs nothing.
- The pan drippingsThe browned glaze left behind is worth using. A splash of water or coffee loosened in the hot pan and poured over the meat is the basis of what the South calls red-eye gravy.
- YieldFigure three to four thin slices, roughly 3 to 4 oz, per person at breakfast, and serve on a warmed platter as directed — thin ham cools almost instantly.
Fried ham was a common breakfast meat in the nineteenth-century American household, and its brevity here reflects that: little instruction was thought necessary. Households with access to a smokehouse might keep a ham hanging, or buy a whole one and work through it over weeks, frying slices from the cut face and saving the hock and bone for beans and greens. The word spider is suggestive of a text sitting between hearth and stove — the legged hearth pan was passing out of use as ranges spread, but its name stuck to the flat-bottomed skillet that replaced it, and American cookbooks went on using the word for decades afterwards.