Every family has its favored flavors and preparations, but whether your clan prefers hickory-smoked or maple-glazed, simply baked or fancied up with pineapple rings, it’s hard to imagine the Easter holiday without ham. It looks beautiful on the table, tastes delicious and doesn’t require much work – unlike roasting the Thanksgiving turkey, cooking a ham is so easy even a novice cook can easily shine.
Missouri is home to many independent ham processors, and distinctive and flavorful hams are easy to find. Because there are only two hams to each pig, most ham purveyors don’t find the yield – and leftover bounty of pork – worth the cost and effort involved in raising hogs. Though some do slaughter hogs, most purchase their supply from Midwestern hog farms and then cure and smoke the “green,” or unprocessed, hams in-house. This arrangement also allows local ham companies to keep up with high consumer demand, which spikes during holiday seasons.
There’s an old witticism about eternity being a ham and two people, and producers are combating this stereotype of ham as a holiday food by offering smaller and more convenient options.
Here’s a list of some local companies and where to buy their hams:
Swiss Meat and Sausage Co. offers natural-juice, cherry-smoked boneless or bone-in hams. The smoking imparts a slightly darker color, a faint cherry aroma and a sweeter flavor than is found in the company’s hickory-smoked hams. For Easter, smaller 6- to 8-pound picnic hams, from the front shoulder of the pig, are available in the cherry-smoke variety. Hams may be purchased at the company’s store in Swiss, Mo.; by phone at 800.793.7947; or online at www.swissmeats.com.
If a hickory-smoked, bone-in or boneless ham tickles your palate, look to Frick’s Quality Meats of Washington, Mo., to deliver a superior natural-juice ham. “All our hams are hardwood-smoked. We don’t use any liquid smoke,” said Alan Sickendick, territory business manager for Frick’s.
Sickendick said convenience is driving the growth of boneless hams. “When we make our boneless ham, the only thing we remove is bone and interior fat, so it eats just like a bone-in ham,” he explained. “It’s more convenient and easier to slice.”
Frick’s also keeps pace with the shift toward smaller, family-size hams by offering a “steak,” a bone-in, center-cut ham slice. At 1 pound, it’s big enough for a small family and quick-cooking enough to make ham a weeknight dinner staple. “Four minutes each side on the grill, and it’s done,” he said. Frick’s hams are widely available from grocers throughout the metro area.
The brown sugar, hickory-smoked, natural-juice hams from Double G in Pacific still use the cure recipe founder Glenn Gatzert developed in 1973. Today, his daughter, Glenda Hoerstkamp, and his son, Greg Gatzert, continue to produce their father’s signature hams, but they’ve added new twists. Look for a mesquite-smoked ham to hit the St. Louis market soon. “All our hams have the brown sugar sweetness, but the mesquite adds a sharper flavor and a smokier taste,” Hoerstkamp said. The company also offers the junior Double G, a 1.5-pound ham with the full flavor of the bigger boys. You’ll find Double G hams at the big local chains as well as smaller markets like Straub’s, Johnny’s Market, Sappington International Farmer’s Market and Don’s Meat Market.
Karlios Hinkebein of Hinkebein Hills Farm raises the hogs he processes on his farm near Cape Girardeau. One of the smallest –
and newest, with just over 10 years in the ham-curing business – local vendors, Hinkebein doesn’t use antibiotics or growth hormones in his herd. Still, his hogs yield large hams of 18 pounds or more. Although, because the market is trending toward smaller family-size hams, he offers half-hams as well.
And the taste? “Maple, plus a little bit of brown sugar and not much else but the good taste of the meat,” Hinkebein said of the cure for his bone-in natural-juice hams. “The ham doesn’t taste like syrup,” he added, “[maple syrup] just gives a sweetness to the meat.” Slow hickory smoking adds depth to the flavor as well.
Hinkebein delivers to St. Louis weekly; hams may also be ordered from the farm store by calling 573.332.8530. Hinkebein will be selling his hams, pork, bacon and sausage at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market April 7 from 9 a.m. to noon at St. John’s Episcopal Church hall, located one-half block west of South Grand Boulevard on Arsenal Street.
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2007.