Ham, to Carve
In cutting a ham, the carver must be guided according as he desires to practise economy or have at once fine slices out of the prime part.
Under the first supposition, he will commence at the knuckle end, and cut off thin slices towards the thick part of the ham.
To reach the choicer portion, the knife, which must be very sharp and thin, should 七、 HAM. be carried quite down to the bone, in the direction of the line A to B. The slices should be thin and even, and always cut down to the bone. There are some who like to carve a ham by cutting a hole at the top, and then slicing pieces off inside the hole, gradually enlarging the circle; but we think this is a plan not to be recommended. A ham, when hot, is usually sent to table with a paper ruffle round the knuckle.
Hams for Curing. (Mons. UDE'S Recipe.) INGREDIENTS. For 2 hams weighing about 16 or 18 lbs. each, allow 1 lb. of moist sugar, 1 lb. of common salt, 2 oz. of saltpetre, 1 quart of good vinegar.
As soon as the pig is cold enough to be cut up, take the 2 hams and rub them well with common salt, and leave them in a large pan for 3 days. When the salt has drawn out all the blood, drain the hams, and throw the brine away. Mix sugar, salt and saltpetre together in the above HAMS, TO SALT. proportion, rub the hams well with these, and put them into a vessel large enough to hold them, always keeping the salt over them. Let them remain for 3 days, then pour over them a quart of good vinegar.
Turn them in the brine every day for a month, then drain them well, and rub them with bran. Have them smoked over a wood fire, and be particular that the hams are hung as high up as possible from the fire; otherwise the fat will melt, and they will become dry and hard.
TIME. To be pickled 1 month; to be smoked 1 month.
SEASONABLE from October to March.
The page runs two things together: a note on carving a cooked ham, and Monsieur Ude's method for curing raw pork legs. The carving advice is still sound. The curing recipe is not something to attempt.
- Why the cure fails todayNothing in this process ever reaches a temperature that kills pathogens. The hams are salted, pickled and cold-smoked, then hung — the meat is preserved entirely by salt, nitrate and drying, with no measured concentration, no controlled temperature and no water-activity target. A current, tested curing recipe should be used instead.
- The saltpetreTwo ounces of saltpetre (potassium nitrate) for roughly 34 lb of meat is an uncontrolled dose. Nitrate only becomes the active curing agent, nitrite, through bacterial reduction, which depends on temperature and time — so the effective concentration at any point in the month is unknown. Modern curing salts are formulated and weighed precisely for exactly this reason.
- The salt is too lightThe salt is light -- one pound of salt in the second rub, over two hams of 16 to 18 lb each, is below the ratio a modern tested dry cure specifies, though the recipe also calls for an unmeasured first rub of common salt and for "always keeping the salt over them". The vinegar poured on after three days acts chiefly at the surface; the interior of a whole leg is the part that matters and the part least protected.
- Temperature is assumed, not stated"Seasonable from October to March" is the whole of the temperature control. It relies on an unheated Victorian larder or outbuilding sitting near freezing for a month. A modern kitchen or garage does not, and a month of turning in brine at room temperature is a botulism risk, not a preservation method.
- Cold smoking over a wood fireHanging the hams "as high up as possible from the fire" is deliberate; the aim is smoke, not heat, and the recipe warns that otherwise the fat will melt and the hams become dry and hard. That also means the smoke phase contributes little or no pathogen reduction. A month in smoke at ambient temperature is flavour and surface drying only.
- Carving: read the grain, not the shapeCarving -- the economical route starts at the knuckle and works thin slices toward the thick end; the choicer portion is reached by carrying the knife down to the bone in the direction of the line A to B. Either way the instruction that matters is to use a thin, very sharp knife and cut right down to the bone on every slice.
- The paper ruffleThe frill round the knuckle is usually described as decoration, and is sometimes said also to have given the carver something to grip on the projecting bone of a hot ham. Either way it is not needed if you are working on a board with a fork.
- BranRubbing the drained hams with bran gave a dry coating that absorbed surface moisture before smoking. Wheat bran is still sold, though the practice has no place in a method you should not be following.
Louis Eustache Ude was chef to Napoleon's mother and later to Crockford's club in London, and his The French Cook (1813) went through many editions. That a recipe for curing two 16 to 18 lb hams sits beside a note on paper knuckle-frills tells you what kind of household the book addressed: one that might still take delivery of a whole pig in autumn, cut it up cold, and expect the results to appear at table with the formal trimmings. The October-to-March season is the old pig-killing calendar, dictated by cool weather rather than custom: the larder could be trusted to stay cold, and the bacon and hams carried the household through to spring.