Stuffed ham is a variety of

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

in which cabbage,

kale Kale (), or leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars grown for their edible leaves, although some are used as ornamentals. Kale plants have green or purple leaves, and the central leaves do not form a head ...

onions An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...

, spices and

seasoning Seasoning is the process of supplementing food via herbs, spices, salts, and/or sugar, intended to enhance a particular flavour. General meaning Seasonings include herbs and spices, which are themselves frequently referred to as "seasonings". H ...

s are chopped and mixed, then stuffed into deep slits slashed in a whole corned or

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 tradi ...

ham. The ham is covered with extra stuffing, wrapped in a cloth to hold everything together, and then boiled until the meat and greens are fully cooked. Stuffed ham is believed to have originated in

Southern Maryland Southern Maryland is a geographical, cultural and historic region in Maryland composed of the state's southernmost counties on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. According to the state of Maryland, the region includes all of Calvert, Cha ...

, specifically in St. Mary's County, and remains popular in that region to this day. Often used as a

Christmas ham A Christmas ham or Yule ham is a ham often served for Christmas dinner or during Yule in Northern Europe and the Anglosphere. The style of preparation varies widely by place and time. Despite the common claim that the tradition of eating ham i ...

, this preparation has been popular for at least 200 years. Typically the ham has a distinctively spicy flavor due to added seasoning. Recipes vary widely, since they are traditionally passed down from one family member to another.

Salmonella vector

In 1997, improperly prepared stuffed ham served at the Our Lady of the Wayside Catholic Church fund-raising dinner in

Chaptico, Maryland Chaptico is an unincorporated community in St. Mary's County, Maryland, United States. It lies on Chaptico Run, which forms a bay as it enters the Wicomico River. History ''Chaptico'' may be Algonquian for "big-broad-river-it-is" and related t ...

was responsible for one of the largest multi-drug resistant

Salmonella ''Salmonella'' is a genus of rod-shaped (bacillus) Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. The two species of ''Salmonella'' are ''Salmonella enterica'' and '' Salmonella bongori''. ''S. enterica'' is the type species and is fur ...

Heidelberg outbreaks in Maryland which sickened 750 people and caused two deaths. The

CDC The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

documented the incident in the journal ''

Emerging Infectious Diseases ''Emerging Infectious Diseases'' (EID) is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). EID is a public domain journal and covers global instances of new and reemerging infectious disea ...

''.

Salmonella vector

See also

References

Further reading