BRING OUT DE HAM

Author :An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh

Christ­mas just ain't Christ­mas with­out a good ham. In Trinidad of yes­ter­year, the pre­cious leg of pork would be boil­ing in a pitch-oil tin for many hours be­fore be­ing baked, ei­ther in a coalpot tin oven or a bee­hive mud oven, to be served with oth­er tra­di­tion­al fare like pastelles and fruit cake.

Chances are the ham would be di­min­ished long be­fore the fam­i­ly could have a go at it, through the in­roads of "mop­pers," oth­er­wise known as vil­lage paran­deros.

The choic­es for ham lovers were not easy. Price was a ma­jor con­sid­er­a­tion as well as qual­i­ty. In the coun­try­side ar­eas, the ham every­one knew was a salty, well-cured leg of pork hang­ing from the rafters of the Chi­nese shop. This would be an Amer­i­can ham, im­port­ed in bar­rels of saw­dust with some of that still cling­ing to the sur­face.

Af­ter boil­ing the skin would be stripped off be­fore bak­ing. The skin it­self was kept un­til af­ter Christ­mas, when mon­ey was scarce, and would be used to pro­vide pro­tein in a meal of rice or as the meat in a sand­wich. It could al­so be fried crisp and eat­en as a snack. The fat was used to leav­en bakes. Even the ham bone did not go to waste. Bro­ken up in pieces, it was used in soups, callaloo and oil-down.

The low­est grade of ham was what was known as the "pitch ham." This was lo­cal­ly made and smoked. To pre­serve it, the pitch ham had a coat­ing of as­phalt on the out­side, which made the skin ined­i­ble and im­part­ed a min­er­al flavour to the meat which I am told was far from un­pleas­ant-al­though one can imag­ine that it was not the health­i­est food around.

In the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, an Amer­i­can ham cost about $5, with the pitch ham sell­ing for $2 less. This was no mean ex­pen­di­ture in an era when it was a de­cent month­ly wage for a do­mes­tic ser­vant, mak­ing the ham an in­dul­gence.

The ham most Tri­nis were fa­mil­iar with was the York ham. The York ham is mild­ly flavoured, light­ly smoked and dry-cured, which is salti­er but milder in flavour than oth­er Eu­ro­pean dry-cured ham. It has del­i­cate pink meat and does not need fur­ther cook­ing be­fore eat­ing. It is tra­di­tion­al­ly served with Madeira sauce. Folk­lore has it that the oak used for con­struc­tion for York Min­ster in Eng­land pro­vid­ed the fu­el for smok­ing the meat.

York hams were sold from most city gro­ceries like Can­nings and the Ice House and al­so de­part­ment stores with pro­vi­sion de­part­ments, like Stephens. The fa­mous Ice House Gro­cery on Ma­rine (In­de­pen­dence) Square in­clud­ed a York ham in its fa­mous $5 Christ­mas ham­pers.

Packed chock-full of good­ies like Mus­ca­tel wine, nuts, im­port­ed sweets and dried fruits for the fa­mous rum cake, these ham­pers could be packed in­to a wood­en box and for­ward­ed by rail to cus­tomers deep in the coun­try­side.

Even though some pre­fer turkey, the hall­mark of Christ­mas is still a ham.

Photo 1. : Salt ham hanging at Sing Chong Supermarket on Charlotte Street, Port of-Spain. Photo Credit : BRIAN NG FATT.

Photo 2: Boiling the Christmas Ham- Drawing by Rudolph Bissessarsingh (2012)