To Broil Ham
Cut slices thin. Let stand in cold water for an hour. Wipe dry, place in broiler and broil over coals, charcoal best. A very hot spider will answer.
Three lines that assume a coal fire and a salt-cured country ham. Both assumptions need adjusting before this works on a modern range.
- The soak is the hingeAn hour in cold water pulls salt out of a heavily dry-cured ham so the slices are edible rather than punishing. If you are using ordinary supermarket ham or a mild wet-cured steak, skip it entirely — you will only wash out flavor and leave the surface too wet to sear.
- "Spider"An old term for a cast-iron frying pan, originally one with legs that stood over coals. A heavy cast-iron skillet, preheated until a drop of water skitters, is the direct equivalent.
- How thin is thinAbout 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Thin slices cook through before the exterior hardens; a thick ham steak wants lower heat and longer time, which is a different dish.
- Dry the surface properlyAfter soaking, blot the slices hard between towels. Any surface water steams rather than browns, and browning is the whole point of the method.
- TimingOn a hot skillet or under a broiler set high, one to two minutes a side is enough for slices this thin; you are chiefly crisping the edges and rendering the fat rim. Longer and it turns dry and leathery.
- Charcoal, if you have itThe recipe prefers charcoal but does not say why. A grill works well; a gas broiler is the closest indoor match, with the pan a distant but serviceable third.
- YieldThe recipe gives none. Red-eye gravy, made from the rendered fat with a splash of water or coffee, is a traditional accompaniment to fried or broiled ham, though this recipe does not mention it.
Broiled ham of this kind belongs to the era when a household bought or cured a whole ham and worked through it for months, slicing off what was needed. Heavy dry salt curing was preservation first and seasoning second, which is why the instruction to soak comes before any instruction to cook: the salt that kept the meat sound through a summer had to be drawn back out at the table. Mrs. Wilson wrote for American home cooks in the early twentieth century, when household economy and thrift were pressed hard, and an entry as short as this one assumes the reader already knows what a spider is. The preference for charcoal is presumably a matter of practical taste; the recipe itself gives no reason.