Production
Country hams are salt-cured (and occasionally nitrite- and nitrate-cured) for one to three months. They may be hardwood (usually hickory and red oak) smoked, then aged for several months to 2–3 years, depending on the fat content of the meat. Country hams are not fully cooked, but preserved by the cure. Smoking is not a legal requirement: some types of country ham, such as the "salt-and-pepper ham" of North Carolina, are not smoked. Smoking turns the meat a much redder color than unsmoked hams. They are usually sold in stores unrefrigerated as whole, bone-in hams packaged in rough cotton bags, with identifying markings printed on the bags. Country ham is also sold in presoaked, sliced, ready-to-cook form, usually vacuum-packaged.
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“To expect to increase prices and then to maintain them at a higher level by means of a plan which must of necessity increase production while decreasing consumption is to fly in the face of an economic law as well established as any law of nature.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)