Hamming It Up

Random reflections on a drive through Virginia's ham country

On our drive home from Virginia Beach, I wanted to stop at this Virginia ham and butcher store in Surry, across the water from Newport News. In other words, still within the reach of the Hampton Roads region, but on the mainland part of the state. Usually we take the bridge/tunnel from Virginia Beach across to Newport News (or wherever exactly the ends are located) and go home that way. But this mainland route wasn’t that much longer—maybe 20 minutes, given the traffic at the bridge—and it looked like a potentially interesting thing to see.

The scenic drive was beautiful. We went over a drawbridge and felt like we were climbing into the air surrounded by water. We passed marshes and waterside houses and farms. There were some boarded up houses and empty general stores along the way (why do they all have that same old-school faded Pepsi sign hanging out front?), but the areas we drove through seemed to be in decent economic shape.

Smithfield, and the nearby town of Surry to the northwest, while an outsider might identify them as middle-of-nowhere, are in fact the ham capital of Virginia. Apparently this region was known for pork and hams even in the 1700s. The real specialty is country ham—which folks here contrast with “city ham,” or what non-Southerners call “ham.” (Kind of like how my mom grew up calling bread “American bread” and Italian bread “bread.”)

I brought one of those home, from Edwards, one of the better known Virginia country ham producers. Also this bit of cured pork jowl—American guanciale.

The store was lovely. Small, but they had a lot of meats and some local products. The ladies behind the counter were very helpful in explaining to me what exactly I was buying! I’m not familiar with this stuff, but I wanted to try it. Unfortunately, one of the products I really wanted to try was no longer carried anymore: an Edwards product called “Surryano ham,” a play on the Spanish Serrano ham. It’s a Virginia country ham that’s sliced thin and eaten cured but uncooked, just like Serrano ham or prosciutto.

There are some details I haven’t quite pinned down: apparently Edwards’s smokehouse burned down a few years ago. One Redditor said the company lacked insurance. In any case, they announced that rebuilding was beyond their budget. They still talk about Virginia ham and old recipes on their website, but some people say the quality isn’t the same and they’re not even made in Virginia. (The ham store in fact used to be an Edwards outlet, and in last couple of years the company sold it off.)

Then there’s the Smithfield ham, a now-discontinued local product, named after Smithfield the town, not Smithfield the company, though Smithfield the company is named after the town and was one of the major makers of it (who discontinued it, and had called it “Genuine Smithfield ham”). Apparently there are no other small producers left close enough to Smithfield the town to earn that name. Here’s an interesting Reddit thread about it.

Here’s the Wikipedia article on Smithfield ham. Take a look at this:

While it is unclear whether the green pork (the raw product of the cured ham) may come from hogs raised and slaughtered in other than Smithfield, Virginia, the statute stipulates that the six-month (minimum duration) curing clock is to begin when the green pork is "introduced to dry salt", and that through the entire duration of the process, the ham and its processing must occur within Smithfield, Virginia. The statute also commands that any richer or more intense cure, obtained from an aging that is in excess of six months, must also be done within Smithfield, Virginia.

Salt-cured ham eaten sliced thin? Very specific regulated place-based product names? I feel like I’m reading about Europe. And yet this is all happening just to the right of the middle of this image, between Richmond and the Hampton Roads region. At this level of zoom, there’s not a single town or city that Google displays a name for in that stretch. Heck, even most of the roads don’t light up.

Once I try my country ham—and maybe track down that Surryano stuff—I want to come back to this. I love these American stories. Things that make you say “Huh, I didn’t know that” that are really right there in your backyard.

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Related Reading:

The Craft Meat Revolution?

The Country And The City

Where Do They Shop?

Different Country

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