That Easter Tradition A Good Meaty Ham

Ham has always been the meat of choice on almost every Easter table. This centuries old tradition has given ham lovers and home chefs good memories of a delicate salty flavor and an easy cook. It is the perfect dish for the holiday , each slice bringing joy.

Kim Severson wrote about this classic in today's New York Times Food section. Ms. Severson, a southerner herself, is no stranger to this cut of pork. Ham is also served at Christmastime, usually as the main course at the holiday dinner , along with being at baptisms, graduations and funerals. Right now sales are up because of the Easter season. The ham that we're used to is the  spiralized kind, one that is precooked and precut. It's different from fresh ham which is an uncooked part of a pig's rear leg.It's rubbed in  salt and a little spice, then smoked over wood and hung for several months to age. A spiralized ham is is soaked or injected with brine, spice and sugar. There are also curing agents added and then it's smoked a little.It's a quick process that only take four days which makes a tad more popular than the country style.Sales of them have been going up since 2017, even though their prices have also gone up. The price increase is due to American companies sending a lot of hams to Canada and Mexico.

What should a home chef look for in a ham? Check the amount of water listed on the can.Brine,a salty water mix is injected into the meat and can affect its' taste and texture. Top of the line ones are simply labelled "ham" and have to be 20.5 per cent protein by weight. Another classification is one  with "natural juices" listed. It's a good bet that around seven to nine percent of the cut is water. Most supermarket hams are labelled "hams with water added" which means that it has up to ten percent more water. Keep in mind that hams like this can turn spongy and don't do well on a spiralizing machine. Another point is that all spiralized hams have some kind of sweet glaze. The marriage of the meat and sugar is over a century old. Early recipes such as the one from the 1898 Delmonico Cookbook features a scored ham with powdered sugar. Another recipe from around 1940, found in The Boston Cooking - School Cookbook has a ham recipe that calls for frosting it with royal icing! Then there's the classic pineapple and cherry held by cloves stuck in the ham. This first started in 1931 with Irma Rombauer's first edition of "The Joy Of Cooking". The best bet is a rub with ginger ale and brown sugar. You can use pineapple too which breaks down the meat's collagen, making it easier to digest.

A good Easter dinner starts with a good ham. There's is nothing quite like a slice of silky pink meat, perfectly seasoned with spices and sweet. What a wonderful way to celebrate a Spring holiday.

Keep Those Eggs To Yourself

Tonight is Mischief Night , or if you're in my neck of the woods Goosey Night, this from the medieval English Guise Night. It's a night of punking and pranking. Unfortunately it and a few other fall festivities result in wasting important food stuffs. This in a time when people here in the US are starving.

Ask any true blue American about Mischief or Cabbage night pranks and they will tell you that, yes they've thrown a few eggs in their day or smashed a few pumpkins. What a true waste of food (not to mention causing serious damage. Not to many people know that egg albumin, or the white part can take off car paint,it's something to do with it binding with toxic substances like lead). It's also dangerous lobbing them at passing cars. It's not water that will quickly bead off. The yolk and shell will gook up and then the wipers will only spread it. This is also the time for those merry  happy pranksters to take those pumpkins and smash them.Well ,this is good for the raccoons who love pumpkins however it's bad for the family who was relying on that big squash for  food. They could have used the flesh for puree for either a filling soup or for pie filling, The seeds can also be re purposed and baked  to become tasty snacks.  That pumpkin lying in the road  could have also been  used to make bread,

Another Cabbage Night prank is the famed Mentos in diet Coke. (for those of you true innocents who don't know what it is or who have never seen it done on The Big Bang Theory).Originally it was wintergreen Lifesavers threaded onto a pipe cleaner and then plunged into a bottle of diet Coke. The gas from the mints propelled the soda out in a foamy geyser. When the candy company found out about this trick  they changed the candy's diameter, making them wider and impossible to dunk. It turns out , much to the delight of kids and science teachers that Mentos do the same trick.Don't do this , The geysers can reach up to five feet (if you use the whole roll) and create accidents and damage. It ruins siding as well as hurts and scares any animal life. A less, but equally, insidious prank is chucking apples on the road and hurled against houses. Again this is a blatant waste of food and there are people who would truly appreciate a good , ripe apple. Hurling them at passing cars or dropping them from overpasses can result in serious multicar accidents. Save them for the homeless and the food pantries. Apples are versatile and can be used in everything from oatmeals to cakes and of course to make applesauce.

Mischief Night is about mischief making however it 's more of a sin when you use food to do so. Put down the egg,s the apples and those Mentos. Don't squash the pumpkins. Food should be treasured , not wasted on mindless pranks. Besides if you want to cause impish damage, go for the toilet paper. Less trouble , more mess.