Smithfield ham is a specific form of
country ham
Country ham is a variety of heavily salted ham preserved by curing and smoking, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States.
Production
Country hams are salt-cured (with or without nitrites) for one to three months. They are us ...
finish-
cured in the
town of Smithfield in
Isle of Wight County
Isle of Wight County is a county located in the Hampton Roads region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It was named after the Isle of Wight, England, south of the Solent, from where many of its early colonists had come. As of the 2020 census, th ...
in the
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic ...
region of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
, U.S.
History
The first record of the commercial sale of cured "Smithfield Ham" is a receipt to Ellerston and John Perot on the Dutch Caribbean Island of
St Eustatius
Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially "public body") of the Netherlands.
The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, sout ...
, dating from 1779.
The Commonwealth of Virginia first regulated usage of the term "Smithfield Ham" in a 1926 Statute passed by its
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of pres ...
stating:
The "peanut-fed" and "peanut-belt" stipulations were removed in 1966. The present statute reads:
LIS > Code of Virginia > 3.2-5419
/ref>
While it is unclear whether the green pork (the raw product of the cured ham) may come from hogs raised and slaughtered in other than Smithfield, Virginia, the statute stipulates that the six-month (minimum duration) curing clock is to begin when the green pork is "introduced to dry salt", and that through the entire duration of the process, the ham and its processing must occur within Smithfield, Virginia. The statute also commands that any richer or more intense cure, obtained from an aging that is in excess of six months, must also be done within Smithfield, Virginia.
Gallery
File:Genuine Smithfield, Virginia, hams come from peanut fed hogs (crop).jpg, Postcard image of peanut-fed hogs
File:Genuine Smithfield, Virginia, hams in dry salt process (crop).jpg, Postcard image of hams in the dry salt process
File:Ageing genuine Smithfield, Virginia, hams (crop).jpg, Postcard image of Smithfield hams hung to age
See also
* List of hams
* List of dried foods
This is a list of dried foods. Food drying is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of bacteria and has been practiced worldwide since ancient times to preserve food. Where or when d ...
* Jinhua ham
Jinhua ham () is a type of specialty dry-cured ham named after the city of Jinhua, where it is produced, in Zhejiang province, China. The ham is used in Chinese cuisines to flavor stewed and braised foods as well as for making the stocks ...
References
{{ham
Ham
Dried meat
Virginia culture
Cuisine of the Southern United States