On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:16:56 -0500, "cshenk" > wrote:

>"Kent" wrote
>> "cshenk" wrote
>
>>>>> Thanks for all the help and suggestions. The ham, (a COOK'S ham for the
>>>
>>> (snips)
>
>>>> Glad you liked it! A few decades ago, we decided to do an uncooked ham
>>>> instead of a cooked one. Being that it was a holiday season like now,
>>>> it was just ridiculously cheap. It tasted so much better that we've
>>>> never bought a cooked ham for the oven since. Although the uncooked
>>>> hams are cheap, they lose a lot of weight due to moisture and fat loss,
>>>> but it's still a deal, and IMNSHO, much better.
>>>
>>> Same here Dan. We've found most of the 'pre-cooked' ones have been
>>> injected with all sorts of things (not just a simple salt brine in
>>> sensible amounts). Ham itself in this natural un-cooked state is already
>
>>> I like the term 'Cooks Ham' for these BTW. The flavor is just better to
>>> me and the flexibility in what you do with it is higher. If you want to
>>> studd it deep with cloves or star anise, there won't be any competing
>>> flavors from what the 'factory' _thought_ you wanted it pre-flavored
>>> with.
>>>
>> Cook's Ham is a brand of smoked uncooked hams.
>> http://cooksham.com/product/bone-in-...onal-whole-ham
>
>Cool! It;s a brand as well? I hadnt realized that and took it as a
>nom-de-plume for a type vice a brand. I don't like their brine though. A
>good ham doesnt need added sugar. Pre-smoking (I assume cold smoking?) isnt
>bad though.

About all cured ham is cured with some sugar, sugar is the oldest
preservative known to man, even preceded salt by like ten thousand
years, most bacon is cured with some sort of sugar (curing means to
preserve). If not for the sugar content naturally occuring in fruit
it would rot before it dried... most plums don't contain enough sugar
to become prunes, gotta use prune plums. The only reason nitrites
are used to cure meats is because ordinary table salt won't maintain
that lovely pussy pink spam colour, cured meats would otherwise all be
crone gray... imagine a gray corned beef sammich... without nitrites
all those ball park weenies you suck down would be rotted varicose
vein purple and old fart flaccid grey rather than nubile sweet penis
pink. LOL