The ham is the message
One should never miss out on the good things in life, especially when ham, like good news or a major career lap told over supper, is meant to be shared
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One should never miss out on the good things in life, especially when ham, like good news or a major career lap told over supper, is meant to be shared
Many suitors come calling, but only King Sue ham is surely one to bring home to mother.
She's the leading authority on everything — and always puts it with some kind of narcissistic reprisal — from stone veneers to liquid detergents to spiral-cut hams that have, since we were tots, covered more real estate in our bias in choices.
She has the deciding vote along the "frozen" lane. Like any stickler for detail, she once mistook a brand — that's "a long way from a good ham" — I fondly discovered for jerky.
"I'd wager it's no King Sue!"
King Sue ham is like the centerpiece turkey in my mom's petit-bourgeois notion of Christmas, a middle-class holiday homecooking that gives us kids working home away the family bug.
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Like superstitious folk, she would portion the plump slab in identical generous pieces and everyone partakes in it the way we might equally share a birthday cake — nobody touches it until everybody's around.
The point is that one should never miss out on the good things in life, especially when ham, like good news or a major career lap told over supper, is meant to be shared.
We call in sick to a family friend's wedding, on high school soiree and charade, but giddy up for dinner when ham is to be served. It has to be special.
King Sue ham had been so at home with my mother's dirty-kitchen ideals even before taste tests in local delis caught on as advertising.
It's the reputation that precedes King Sue hams; a favorite: King Sue's Chinese bone-in, which goes profoundly into the shank and is bone-deep. It's not briny or spongy, and the delicate sugar glaze so naturally entwines with the juice of the premium-quality pork leg for a symphony of "sweet" and "savory."
My mother usually adds scores by slicing the surface of the meat for an extra glaze of brown sugar and cloves before it's cooked cut-side-down and covered to lock in the juice.
King Sue's Piña Ham, meanwhile, is a festive ode steeped in special brine to be sweet and salty at the same time.
In our household, King Sue's Sweet Ham kicks all comparisons in the "sweet department" right in the ugly. It's a crusty classic nod to the brand's commitment to tradition borne out of the time-honored curing methods and the way of the brine.
King Sue's Hawaiian Ham is a toothsome haunch reminiscent of a recipe seared in a lagoon of pineapple juice and caramel.
My mother delivers King Sue's Pear-Shaped Ham plush and proportioned, a ready-to-cook archetype that preserves its place in the line as heir apparent to an all-time favorite lamb ragu.
Christmas is sharing season, and ham is easy when you run out of ideas. It multiplies your generosity and celebration. We end the year with ham and pass it in the neighborhood. "From our family to yours" is how we put it, sealed with well wishes and sometimes a complete family picture. If the ham is the message, I hope King Sue makes its way to your home.
