Gammon is the hind leg of

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...

after it has been cured by dry-salting or

brining In food processing, brining is treating food with brine or coarse salt which preserves and seasons the food while enhancing tenderness and flavor with additions such as herbs, spices, sugar, caramel or vinegar. Meat and fish are typically ...

, which may or may not be

smoked Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meat, fish, and '' lapsang souchong'' tea are often smoked. In Europe, alder is the tra ...

. Strictly speaking, a gammon is the bottom end of a whole side of bacon (which ''includes'' the back leg), ham is just the back leg cured on its own. Like

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

, it must be cooked before it can be eaten; in that sense gammon is comparable to fresh pork meat, and different from dry-cured ham like prosciutto.W K H Bode; M J Leto.
The Larder Chef
'. Routledge; 25 June 2012. . p. 178–. The term is mostly used in the United Kingdom and Ireland, while other dialects of English largely make no distinction between gammon and ham.

Ham hock __NOTOC__ A ham hock (or hough) or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper no ...

, gammon hock, or knuckle, is the back end of the joint, and contains more

connective tissue Connective tissue is one of the four primary types of animal tissue, along with epithelial tissue, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. It develops from the mesenchyme derived from the mesoderm the middle embryonic germ layer. Connective tiss ...

and

sinew A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...

.GOOD HOUSEKEEPING.
Gh Food Encyclopedia
'. Anova Books; 2009. . p. 185–. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, joints of cooked gammon are often served at

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

. It can be found in most supermarkets either as a full joint or sliced into steaks, which can then be cooked via pan frying in a manner similar to bacon. The word 'gammon' is derived from the Middle English word for 'ham', ''gambon'', which is attested since the early 15th century and derived from Old North French ''gambon'', itself derived from Old French ''jambon'', which is identical to the modern French word for 'ham'. Old French ''jambon'' is attested since the 13th century and is derived from Old French ''jambe'' (''gambe'' in Old North French) which in turn is derived from the

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

gamba Gamba or Gambas may refer to: Geography *Gamba, Gabon, a port **Gamba Airport in Gamba, Gabon *Gamba, Chad, a town *Gamba County, Tibet People *Gamba (surname) *Gamba (footballer) (Carlos Alberto Gambarotta; 1893–1944), Brazilian footballer Ot ...

'', meaning 'leg/hock of a horse/animal', which can ultimately be traced to Greek ''kampe'' meaning 'a bending/a joint', which is from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

*kamp- (“to bend; crooked”). In some English dialects a similarly derived 'gambol' refers to a 'leg'.

References

{{Ham, state=expanded Ham Christmas food Cuts of pork Smoked meat

See also

References