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Edwards In The News
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EDWARDS IN THE NEWS
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Gourmet Magazine, New York City, New York
In helping their readers find the best-tasting Easter ham, culinary experts at this renowned food magazine selected our Edwards Tender Smoked Ham as No. 1 rated of 13 name brand hams tested. Read details
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The Record, Hackensack, New Jersey
In an age of mass production and compromised quality, how the Edwards family continues a hands-on approach to producing a limited supply of the very finest smoked hams, bacon and sausage. Read details
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The Post & Courier, Charleston, South Carolina
Nathalie Dupree, author of eight cookbooks and former director of Rich’s Cooking School in Atlanta, GA, gives preparation and cooking tips for country and city hams. Read details
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The Progress Index, Petersburg, Virginia
How a small family business, started almost 80 years ago in tiny Surry, Virginia, became known as the source of a Southern dining classic known as the "Virginia country ham." Read details
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Wine Spectator, New York City, New York
In this article, a writer for a national magazine enjoyed by lovers of quality wines and gourmet foods tells readers about his favorite place to buy Virginia country ham. Read details
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Gourmet Magazine
February, 2005
Volume LXV, Number 2
TESTING FOR PERFECTION
HAMMING IT UP
When we tested mail-order hams for their Easter dinner suitability, we ended up organizing them into two categories: Smoky and Mild. Sometimes a super-smoky ham is shown to greater advantages when used almost as a condiment, nestled into a fresh, warm biscuit or shredded into a risotto, for instance.
All the hams we tried are city cured, or baked, hams; they are juicy, meaty hams that are often glazed or studded with cloves, not the dry-salt-cured Smithfield type, which is best nibbled in paper-thin slices.
When ordering a half ham, we generally prefer the shank end - it looks more elegant, plus you get a bone for soup. We also prefer a ham that isn't spiral cut; those dry out too much in the oven.
For testing purposes, we simply ordered what was available at the time from each producer. The rule of thumb for heating a hat through is 10 minutes per pound in the middle of a 325-degree F oven. Wrap it in foil first; if the ham comes already wrapped in foil, check for a plastic layer underneath, discarding it if found.
SMOKY HAMS WE LIKE
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HAM
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FLAVOR & TEXTURE
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VISUAL APPEAL
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1. Edwards (Virginia) bone-in "Tender Smoked" whole ham (17 to 18 lb.), $79.95
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The perfect balance between salt, sweetness, and smoke; tender but dryer than most city-cured hams
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Big and bold, with an impressive swath of fat and burnished skin. This is a real beaut.
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2. Johnston County Hams (North Carolina) bone-in "Cooked Country" whole ham (10 lb.), $60.95
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Good overall flavor although a little smoky for some tastes; tender.
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Dark, smoky-looking exterior, lovely pink interior.
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3. Murcer's (Oklahoma) bone-in whole ham (15 to 18 lb.), $118.95
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Terrific smoke; a bit on the salty side for some, but others found it well-seasoned; meat is on the dry side, similar to that of Edwards.
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Dark and rustic exterior, beautiful blush of pink inside.
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4. Kreuz Market (Texas) boneless single-muscle "Pit Ham," $7.90 per lb. (3-lb. minimum)
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Great smoke, juicy meat, and peppery finish. It might be too overwhelming for Easter dinner, but would be terrific in biscuits or added to soup.
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Because this is a single muscle, it has no bone, no skin, no exterior fat. The upside? Very easy to carve, and it's small - a boon for singletons.
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5. Col. Newsom's Hams (Kentucky) bone-in "Preacher" half ham (7 to 9 lb.), $48.99
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If you love hickory smoke and juicy meat, you'll love this, although a plateful might be too much of a good thing (try it tucked inside biscuits instead).
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ACCEPTABLE SMOKY HAM
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Burgers' Smokehouse (Missouri) bone-in city-cured half ham (6 to 8 lb.), $47.75
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Mild smoke (a little too mild for some of us); moist and tender.
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A pretty ham, in the Edwards tradition.
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MILD HAMS WE LIKE
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6. Lobel's (New York) bone-in half ham (6 to 7 lb.), $48.98
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A nice balance of sweetness, salt, and gentle smoke; juicy, tender meat. A real crowd pleaser.
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Handsome, with crosshatched exterior; rosy exterior
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7. Snake River Farms (Idaho) boneless Kurobuta half ham (4 lb.), $79.99
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Made from the "Kobe beef" of pork; beautifully balanced, with a little textural bounce that your either love or hate.
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Small and solid. Because it's boneless, it's easy to carve and there's no waste; the downside is that you don't get a soup bone.
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8. Niman Ranch (California) bone- in half ham (7 1/2 lb.), $63.00
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The saltiest of the mild hams (not necessarily a bad thing); tender meat with a firm, slightly bouncy texture.
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Pretty and pink.
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ACCEPTABLE MILD HAMS
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Gwaltney (Virginia) bone-in spiral-cut "Suger Cured" half ham (6 to 8 lb.), $40
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Relatively balanced despite having very little smoke; the texture is somewhat dry, due in part, perhaps, to the fact that it's spiral cut.
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Dark, smoky exterior, pale pink interior.
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Harry & David (Oregon) bone-in spiral-cut half ham (7 lb. 8 oz. to 8 lb. 8 lb. 8 oz.), $64.95
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Gentle smoke; the meat is dry (that spiral cut, again) but still has general appeal.
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Perfectly fine; nicely pink inside.
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Ham I Am! (Texas) bone in "Hickory Smoked" half ham (7 to 8 lb.), $49.95
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More of a fresh pork taste; the "shredded" texture is more tender than it looks.
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A very pink ham; looks dry.
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The Honey Baked Ham Company (Massachusetts) bone-in spiral-cut half ham (8-9 lb.), $66
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Very sweet and the outer slices are a little dry, but still tender; has its fans across the land.
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Thick, dark glaze on exterior; ruddy inside.
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The Record
Hackensack, New Jersey
March 2005
Country Flavorful
Think the finest Virginia hams come from Smithfield? Ask someone in Smithfield and they'll probably send you 10 miles up the road to the single traffic light town of Surry and the S. Wallace Edwards and Sons Smokehouse.
The Edwards family has been curing their own country hams for nearly 80 years, starting when S. Wallace, a ferryboat captain, served ham sandwiches to passengers. Today, it's his grandson, Sam, producing a limited number of traditional hams each year, following the hands-on approach to curing in salt, bathing in hickory smoke and aging for several seasons.
The result is a firm, mahogany-colored meat with an intoxicating aroma and a wonderfully clean, robust salty-smoky essence that also bring out unexpected flavors in almost any dish served with it.
Edwards' Virginia hams come cooked or uncooked, boneless or bone-in (get the bone - it's great for soup later), and in various stages of aging and weight. The Signature Wigwam Brand ham, which is aged for a year, weighs about 15 pounds and retails for $69.95. The family's homemade bacon and sausages are also available on the company's website.
The Post & Courier
Charleston, South Carolina
October 2004
Country Ham/City Ham:
Know your HAMS
By Nathalie Dupree,
author of eight cookbooks and
former director of Rich's Cooking School, Atlanta, Georgia
While slicing pieces of ham about to grace our holiday party table, I ponder the meaning of ham, whose different prices and names at the meat counter or in a catalog can be so confusing. I did some research to make it easier.
First, there are two kinds of ham, "country" and "city."
Country hams are delicious, dry hams, cured and aged with all moisture removed, usually by a dry-cure mixture of salt and other ingredients. They may require a "cultivated palate." If you aren't used to them, they may surprise you. Six months to a year is the traditional processing time for a country ham, but it may be less depending on the aging temperature.
We commonly think of country hams coming from Virginia, going back to the old days of Jamestown, the oldest settlement, when Powhatan Indians showed the settlers how to smoke venison. They adapted this technique to hogs that were kept on Hog Island in the James River just across from Jamestown. Because the hams contain so little water, bacteria can't multiply in them, and they are stored safely at room temperature.
S. Wallace Edwards & Sons, a small family-run ham producer in Surry, Virginia, on the shores of the James River, has been making quality country ham since 1926. They use no sodium nitrate. They produce and sell a long shank ham, a shorter shank dried and/or cooked, a honey ham, a cooked spiral-sliced ham and even a "petite" ham (really a boneless third of a whole ham).
If you do not want to cook a country ham, order one already cooked. Keep refrigerated until ready to use. Glaze and heat through, or just serve at room temperature with no further attention.
Cooking Country Ham
Both dry (uncooked) and cooked (cooked by the producer) country ham may arrive in a burlap bag inside a box. Be sure to check to see if refrigeration is required; it is for a cooked ham.
When a dried country ham arrives, it is somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds, including the bone. It can be kept safely for up to a year without diminishing quality by following the producer's guidelines. It is safe to eat even longer than that.
It can be a big job to cook one of these behemoth legs, with its natural spots of green mold and thick skin. In fact, the mold is harmless and is the signature of a country ham. The process of cooking a country ham is best done over a span of three days, expending a little bit of time each day. Using a cooler or refrigerator that will keep the ham at about 40 degrees, cover the clean ham with water. Change the water, preferably about every eight hours.
You may soak the ham one or two days, or even just overnight. Add ice if needed to keep the temperature low. This is done to reconstitute as well as to desalinate. When through soaking, discard the water and thoroughly scrub the ham with a stiff brush until the mold is removed.
A country ham needs to be cooked with moisture. That may be in the oven, on top of the stove or on the grill. For oven and stove-top cooking, cover the ham with liquid - I prefer something sweet, such as Coca Cola, pineapple juice, apple juice or 7-Up - and a lid or tight foil.
Simmer, don't boil, about 20 minutes a pound; or at 325 degrees in the oven. Internal meat temperature should register 148 degrees with a meat thermometer. While cooking, add liquid if it evaporates. Discard the liquid before slicing.
Taste it. If it's still too salty, you may change the liquid and cook a bit longer, taking care it does not get cooked to shreds.
Glaze and broil at this time with your favorite glaze (brown sugar and cloves work just fine). Or, if slicing ahead, you may omit the glaze. The glaze is for sweetness and presentation.
Because of the intensity of its flavor, country ham should be served shaved or in paper-thin slices.
About City Hams
City ham is a wet-cured ham, when sodium nitrate, salt and sugar are combined with water to form a brine, sometimes called a curing solution. For a commercial cure, this is injected or pumped into the ham, which is then washed and cooked. It may be smoked or not, or injected with a liquid smoke solution.
Brine-cured hams are the ones most commonly found in the grocery store. They can vary enormously in quality, taste and price.
Both city and country hams can be bone-in, partially boned or completely boned. I was always told that hams with the bone left in are more flavorful, but boneless are much easier to carve.
Cuts differ according to the bone. The top half of the ham is called the butt. It has more meat (and fat), is easier to carve and more expensive.The shank half is sweeter, harder to cut, has less meat (because it has more bone) and is less expensive.
Another bone-in ham is the spiral-cut. Precooked, it is cut around the bone with machinery that allows slicing in one continuous cut around the ham. It makes consistently even slices from one end to the other.
All of these can be glazed and reheated. City hams can be totally cooked (reaching 147 degrees and needing no further cooking) or partially cooked (heated to 137 degrees to the center). Partially cooked ham and leftovers should be heated to 160 degrees. Both partially cooked and totally cooked city hams can be glazed.
The Progress Index
Petersburg, Virginia
September 2004
Celebrate the goodness of
Virginia Country Ham
Go hog wild! Eat Virginia country ham. October is the national celebration of country ham, the roots of which go back more than 200 years. Preserving meat by salting down or "curing" is a technique brought to the New World, but the native North Americans taught them that smoke from hickory, maple or applewood could add other flavors to the smoked varieties of country ham.
During Colonial times, families were bigger by necessity with plenty of kids who all had to work-it-off-in-the- field appetites. Today's households are different, with fewer people and smaller appetites.
S. Wallace Edwards & Sons of Surry has come up with the perfect solution for smaller households who relish the flavor of all-meal, hickory-smoked country ham. It's the 2-3 pound Petite Boneless Ham, a convenient variation of their larger Virginia Ham. It has the same bold flavor and rich mahogany color that have made Edwards Virginia hams legendary. The size of the ham is misleading since when cut in traditional paper-thin slices makes a feast-size quantity, serving approximately 20 people.
The Petite Boneless Ham is fully cooked, and arrives ready to gently heat and serve. It comes in a traditional cloth bag and makes an impressive and memorable gift.
Although the petite ham addresses modern lifestyles, the folks at S. Wallace Edwards & Sons carry on the tradition of curing and smoking ham started by their grandfather in 1926. S. Wallace Edwards Sr. was captain of the ferryboat that carried passengers across the James River between Jamestown and Surry.
One day while transporting hungry passengers across the river, he was inspired. He could sell his famished ferryboat folk sandwiches made from his family's country ham. Word traveled fast, and before long, he was selling family hams to neighbors, cooks on Southern estates and proprietors of nearby general stores.
"Now, three-quarters of a century later, my wife Donna, my sister Amy and I still work every day to preserve our grandfather's and father's commitment to quality. We still do things the old-fashioned way just like they taught us, but we have adapted some of our products to meet today's smaller families and hectic lifestyle," Samuel W. Edwards III, president of Edwards said.
Wine Spectator
New York City, New York
December 2003
Bring the World to Your Door
THE HOLIDAYS ARE THE PERFECT TIME TO DISCOVER THAT GOURMET MAIL ORDER IS BETTER THAN EVER
By Owen Dugan
...In the wintertime, smoky flavors can provide comfort even away from the hearth. Sam Edwards is the third generation of meat smokers at his family's Surry, Virginia purveyor. He does sell small, boneless spiral sliced hams, but for the real thing, try his Wigwam ham. It looks primeval, and the taste - salty and smoky, with that nice sweetness - has a depth of flavor that comes from long aging, usually around a year. It's intense. You'll have leftovers, but believe me, you won’t complain...
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To Enjoy A Genuine Virginia Country Ham, Make Sure It Comes Direct From The Smokehouse
All hickory-smoked hams, bacon, sausage and barbecue offered on this site come to you directly from Edwards family smokehouses in Surry, Virginia.
Smoked according to the recipe created by PopPop (Great Granddad, S. Wallace Edwards) back in 1926, Edwards products deliver a unique flavor profile that’s widely recognized as superior by gourmet food authorities & chefs alike. (See "In The News" section on this site.)
So, don’t subject your family to pale, factory-processed substitutes. Serve them genuine, direct-from-the-smokehouse quality from Virginia Traditions and the Edwards family. Then, your loved ones will enjoy the best authentic smoked meats available anywhere.
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