Smithfield Ham
5 Things You Didn't Know About America's Most Delicious Meat
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"Smithfield, Virginia may be famous for the quality of the hams it still makes today, but it is also famous for housing what is reputedly the oldest ham in the world."Smithfield ham is one of those products that is so familiar to people in the United States that many not only take it for granted but also unfairly confuse it with more mundane, mass-produced ham.
On a recent visit to the small town of Smithfield, Virginia (population 8,108 to be exact), I found out that this handcrafted slab of pork goodness has every bit the illustrious history of its European rivals, San Daniele from Italy and the legendary jamon Iberico from Spain, and has a taste that compares to them both. It is particularly fine when served in the traditional manner, either sandwiched between a sliced hot fluffy biscuit or accompanied with a side order of red-eye gravy, made with a slug of black coffee.
So just in case you thought you knew all there was to know about the all-American Smithfield ham, here are five facts that might surprise you about one of America’s oldest and most popular foods.
All Smithfield Hams Are Made In Smithfield, Virginia
Although hams have been made in this part of the U.S. since the time of the first settlements in the 1600s, it was not until 1926 that the state of Virginia passed a statute stating that any ham that wanted to bear the Smithfield name had to be, at the very least, processed within the boundaries of the town.Originally, all the hogs that were used to provide meat for the hams were to be fed entirely on a diet of peanuts. However, in 1966 this rule was relaxed to allow other feeds to be used, primarily because the cost of using the town's other most lucrative crop was prohibitive.
