Uncle Billy's Homemade Hams

Image Gallery by Joel Bourne

The Perfect Cure

My first memory of Uncle Bill Long's ham goes back to a Christmas dinner long ago. I was a shirttail boy of eight, and my family had been invited to Uncle Billy's big white farmhouse near Garysburg, North Carolina. There, among 30 or 40 relatives, we lined up (children first) to cruise the sideboard, plates in hand, and help ourselves to my aunt's Southern cooking. I remember squash casserole, candied yams, butterbeans and snaps, and collards boiled hard and long into a wonderful deep green mush. There was turkey with oyster dressing and cranberry salad, rice and gravy, and hot rolls for dipping and shoving. The desserts were nearby: plum pudding and fruitcake, ambrosia and pecan pie, and, of course, my Aunt June's legendary caramel cake, which had faithful fans in three countries.

Reigning over the sideboard like King Solomon on his throne was a ham cured by Uncle Billy. Deep red on the inside, covered with cloves and a mahogany glaze of molasses and brown sugar on the outside, its aroma filled the dining room. I remember nearly transparent slices, rimmed with thin strips of fat, on a white dinner plate. With my mouth watering and my eyes already feasting, my ears turned deaf to my mother's warnings not to eat too much because "it would give us children bad dreams." (After one Christmas ham-eating binge, legend has it that my cousin Henry awoke among ripped sheets and tossed blankets.) This was strong stuff, I was told—an acquired, grown-up taste, like okra or good bourbon.

I ate too much anyway. I still remember taking small forkfuls of the ham (a taste that can only be described now as dark, hard, and mysterious, and smacking of salt, smoke, and spices), carefully lacing it between bits of soft rolls, and then dousing the whole thing with red-eye gravy. A native of ham country (smoked hams from places like Gwaltney and Smithfield have made the area famous), I feel justified to state unequivocally and with all prejudices firmly in place—that my Uncle Billy makes the best country ham in the world. A modest man of 64 and a churchgoer, he would scoff at such praise—but he wouldn't deny it. He learned it from his mother, Caroline, when he was a boy, and he's been doing it steadily, almost as a revival, for the last 15 years. And like all things he cherishes from a simpler time (including his Model A pickup or his 1935 meat slicer), Uncle Billy's happy to tell you all about it—just as long as you're happy to listen.

When I went to visit him early this fall, the farm was bustling with activity. Cousin Duna's wedding was set for the following weekend, and the whole family of six girls, several husbands, and numerous grandchildren were working in the yard getting ready for it. I found Uncle Billy behind the house wiring lights to one of the half-dozen outbuildings scattered around the place.