St. Mary’s City, MD – So you’re preparing to sit down for the annual Thanksgiving feast.
In Southern Maryland, that includes one particular dish that is rarely found anywhere outside of the region: stuffed ham.
It’s one of those things newcomers to the area are mystified at, especially when told that corned hams are used.
Dialogue often goes something like, “A corned ham? What’s that? Is that one of those salted hams?”
Nope.
Salt hams are a Virginia tradition.
A corned ham is one that is soaked in a salt brine, much like corned beef, which gives it everything from a different texture to flavor and is essential for the primarily Southern Maryland recipe.
Dr. Henry Miller, director of research at Historic St. Mary’s City, the colonial capital of Maryland, was written up in Bon Appétit magazine in the early 1980s when he was doing a dissertation on colonial food.
“We know that pork was an important part of the colonial diet,” Miller said. “The question becomes, where does the idea of stuffing the ham come from?”
Miller admitted there is no easy answer. There are myths and clues as tantalizing as the recipe itself, he acknowledged.
“There is an old legend that stuffed ham was the invention of a slave of the Jesuits at St. Inigoes,” he said. “The story is that it was a special dish she made at the end of Lent for the priests. It’s pure legend,” Miller added.
Other legends speculate that slaves began stuffing the jowls of the hogs given them around Christmastime to make the meat stretch further. No one really knows, Miller said, adding that no colonial recipes have come to light. Most such practices were passed down through oral tradition, he added.
The practice of stuffing meat is not unique to Maryland.
English history is fraught with references to stuffing meat with herbs and spices to help preserve it in the periods before refrigeration or ice boxes emerged in the 19th century. The fact that millions will stuff turkeys this holiday season easily indicates that stuffing meat is not a new thing. What is unusual, however, is this strange Southern Maryland tradition of stuffed ham.
“To me, what was unusual is how it was done, in terms of boiling the meat and the ingredients,” Miller noted. “Some people only use kale. Some people only use cabbage. Some use both. Sometimes people put water cress in it.
“The most telling thing is the spices they use,” he pointed out. “Obviously, salt is not unusual. Mustard seed and celery seed were both part of English cuisine. What is highly unusual is the presence of red pepper,” Miller said.
“That is not a part of English cuisine,” he explained. “The hot peppers are strictly an American thing. Their introduction to stuffed ham may have resulted from a Caribbean influence.
“I’ve looked at lots of colonial recipes,” Miller extrapolated. “There isn’t any recipe that uses it [crushed red pepper]. In the late 19th century spicy food becomes more popular.”
That old legend that suggests stuffed ham was the invention of a slave Jesuits at St. Inigoes owned, if that were true, he said, it may be that the slave had spent time in the Caribbean.
“We know that a number of the enslaved people brought to the colonies had been in the Caribbean,” he said, “but we can’t prove that. But, spicy hot food, you can find examples of that in the Caribbean today. Red pepper is the ingredient that made it different.
“Now, when does it date from? There is no good evidence,” Miller admitted. “One of the best clues is that it must be at least 18th century and the reason we know that is because the only two places where you find stuffed ham made with regular frequency are Southern Maryland and parts of Kentucky. Lots of St. Mary’s County and Charles County families participated in the Bardstown migration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They must have carried that tradition with them, which meant it was already well enough established.
“That’s our only real evidence short of finding a colonial recipe in the records,” he said. “There are a lot of questions. I don’t think we’ll ever know. Red pepper is most unique from traditional colonial recipes. The way it’s prepared, you boil it, then let it cool, which gives it that flavor all through the meat.
“It’s an incredibly important dish,” Miller stressed.
Miller said references to stuffed ham indicate that recipes go up to parts of Calvert and Southern Charles, but stresses that St. Mary’s County appears to be “the heartland of it.
“I have seen recipes, each with its own variation, and I suspect each area has its own little twist on it, probably because it’s been handed down over time through oral tradition,” he concluded. “Some people just use cabbage, some people just use kale. You get to thinking maybe it was a bad year and the kale didn’t do well that year so they stuffed it just using cabbage and decided they liked it better that way. We just don’t know.
“I can tell you that people from outside of the area are always fascinated to hear of it,” he said.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com