Roanoke, Va. – The United States has contributed many foods to the international cuisine scene, most of them a major indictment on American tastes. The Big Mac. The hot dog. The PowerBar, recently named the world’s most disgusting energy bar by the Kenyan Olympic team.
However, before the hot dog was invented, before the first Golden Arch disgraced a suburban strip mall, America gave the world a true culinary treasure: Virginia hams.
After the United States was settled in Jamestown, Va., in 1607, Virginia hams became one of the first agricultural products we exported. They hit Europe like rock ‘n’ roll. In 1688 the Rev. John Clayton wrote the Royal Society in England that Virginia hams were as good as any in Westphalia, a Germany duchy with reputedly the best bacon in Europe.
Queen Victoria had six hams sent to her every week, which may explain why portraits of Queen Victoria made her look like a 19th-century version of a Green Bay Packers nose guard.
I was in Virginia for the Miami (Fla.)-Virginia Tech football game and had to see what so fascinated Europe and, to this day, much of America. Roanoke is one of the more underrated cities in the U.S. It’s tucked into the beautiful rolling countryside of the Shenandoah Valley and has some terrific restaurants in its cobblestone City Market area.
Some obviously misinformed, ill-fed clown at Virginia Tech told me the best place to try traditional Virginia ham is a place called The Roanoker. The Roanoker is on the south end of town off the freeway with all the country charm of a hospital ward.
I walked into the sprawling, blinding-bright room, and I was the only customer between 6 and 60. It was Furr’s Cafeteria with wait service. The waiter brought me a glass of Mondavi sauvignon blanc that was the approximate temperature of snowmelt.
I ordered country-baked ham for $5.95 with fried apples, dressing and gravy, and coleslaw. I looked at the ham, this pitiful, thin slice of pink meat, and developed serious questions about the legitimacy of the British Empire. What was Queen Vic thinking? I tasted it, and it could pass for Spam in five different war zones.
I thought, “What’s the big deal?”
A little research told me it is a big deal if you find the right place. It’s still a big deal in Virginia and has been since a Virginia native named George Washington took Martha out for their first ham dinner together. One written account from Colonial America said there’s “scarcely a Virginia lady who did not eat some cured ham for breakfast.”
Colonial Virginia took to ham when it discovered the land in the Tidewater area was too sandy to grow the leading cash crop: tobacco. (Tobacco eventually found a way. Drive along Interstate 95 and as you pass the Phillip Morris factory in Richmond, there are two smokestacks decorated like giant cigarettes, which, aesthetically speaking, is only slightly more appealing than what could have been: two factory buildings shaped like country hogs.)
By 1783, the ham business was exploding. Today, it’s still booming, and the epicenter of Virginia hams is the famous Padow’s Hams & Deli, a chain of 14 stores in six cities. Padow’s, however, didn’t help ham’s reputation when I walked in on game day and saw a sign reading, “Official hot dog of Virginia Tech athletics.” I stopped short of blaming Padow’s for Virginia Tech getting blown out that night.
Padow’s, however, changed my tune about Virginia ham. It features 57 sandwiches in every ham variation possible. Country ham. Peppered ham. Prosciutto ham. Smithfield ham. Virginia honey ham. The shelves were brimming with burlap bags filled with plastic-wrapped bacon and country hams.
I fantasized about what damage Queen Victoria could do here with a bad case of the munchies.
I ordered a classic Smithfield ham sandwich, named for the Virginia town where the first processing plant was built. Unlike the pseudo-tofu steak I had at The Roanoker, the Smithfield ham was tangy, salty and exploded with flavor. Thinly sliced with mustard and mayonnaise on whole wheat bread, it was one of the better sandwiches I’ve had.
“It’s something you either love or you hate,” said Sidney Padow, who runs the stores with his brother Eddy and whose family began the business in 1936. “We send them all over the world. Most love them.”
Apparently.
Padow’s sells about 80,000 hams a year, including some items that sound like Christmas gags, or have you often craved a cream and country ham ball? And are you adventurous enough to try ham topped with Virginia peanuts?
“Oh, it’s delicious!” Padow said.
He gave me interesting tidbits about ham. He said many grocery stores fill hams with water to make a 10-pound ham weigh 12 pounds and, thus, become more expensive. He said he smokes his hams down to 90 percent of the original weight and then adds 10 percent honey.
Then it’s cured for six months.
“Like a fine bottle of wine or a whisky that takes time to age ham’s the same way,” Padow said.
If you OD’d on turkey last week and swear you’ll do a ham this Christmas, take Padow’s advice: “People buy a fully cooked ham and put it in (the oven) three or four hours, dry it out and toughen it, and there’s no taste to it. We’ll suggest warming them at 300 degrees for 30-60 minutes.”
But try not to eat six a week. You know what happened to the British Empire.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
