Well, I thought this would be just a routine update to the Big Pig Class (February 27, 2010) participants on the status of their hams that are aging in my care. So, I will start with the routine part beginning last Saturday (May 29,2010).   Just as a reminder - after curing in salt for about 5 weeks, they have been hanging in the wine storage part of my basement for the last couple of months. The conditions there have been 60 degrees plus or minus 2 degrees (mostly minus) and 60% RH plus or minus 5% (mostly plus).  

Weighed the two hams – small one is 22.5 lbs. (18% loss) – large one is 25 lbs. (18%) loss. Took them outside to take pictures.

Here is how they look - first the smaller one - skin side:

And the cut side of the smaller one:

There is very little loose salt on it - the white part you see is meat crusted with salt.

Here is the larger one on the skin side:

And the cut side of the larger one:

Poked around the cut end. Discovered soft, moist, smelly pockets on both of them.

Note the dark areas in the lower portion of this picture of the large one:

And here is a closer view of that area:

The rest of the hams seemed quite fine. They are quite firm all over, yet there is some "give" everywhere.

I admit that I started to panic thinking that this might portend bad things going on in the interior parts of the hams. I called Jamie, sent email and pictures to him and Peter and waited for a reply....which did not come from Peter until the next day...after a restless night for me..."what had I done wrong?"....."what can we salvage (cut them up now or cut out the bad parts)?..."how am I going to tell the others about this?"..."will I be hated and ostracized from the group?"....etc.

Peter replied via email on Sunday (30th) with some somewhat soothing words. I immediately called him. We discussed options and the whole philosophy of curing prosciutto from the traditional Italians to the the recent Italians to the modern Italians (Bertolli). And, concluded this was not the end of the end of the world...

I was going to wait until Jamie could come over to take a look at the situation before I did anything (Memorial Day weekend...and he had other things to do) except that I decided to pull the hams from the wine cellar and stick them in my old full sized refrigerator at 40 degrees thinking that the higher temperature might have been the cause (the discussion with Peter actually had elements in it that argued against this theory).

I kept going down to the basement (where the old fridge is) and looking at the hams, poking a little, and smelling my finger. I finally pulled them out and REALLY poked into the suspect cavities....and started pulling out some material that stunk. But, it was clearly not rotting meat/muscle. It was a tan, mealy, moist substance I can best describe as like Fancy Feast minced fish cat food (we have four cats!). WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?  It could also be described as being similar to cooked sweetbreads that had been crushed with a fork only more moist...and had a definite organ/glandular smell...not really like rotten meat. I also noticed that there was a symmetry to the location of these cavities between the two hams - allowing for the mirror image of the right versus the left leg.

Let's see....glandular, mealy, tanish/gray...then it dawned on me. This was some kind of gland (lymph nodes?) that had not been excised during the trimming process at the class, had broken down, left the cavity and was smelling. I was somewhat relieved that this meant there probably was not a general problem with the whole ham and started formulating a plan.

The next day (Monday, 31st) I took them outside again on my deck.

Here they are again - note the dark red areas to the side of the bone - the larger one:

The smaller one:

I then poked deeply into the cavities to pull out as much of this material as I could get with my fingers:

I then used the garden hose with a stiff stream to flush out (a couple of times) the cavities and propped the hams up to drain and air dry:

Then, they went back into the fridge laying down with the cut side up. I packed the cavities with salt since the meat behind the glands (whatever they were) had obviously not been exposed to salt in the initial curing...and thinking that the salt should help negate anything bad going on in there:

I plan to let them sit like this for at least a month to allow the salt to act.

The temperature target range for the refrigerator is 50-55 degrees (per Peter's recommendation) with an RH of at least 50% (getting around 68% now...probably from some moisture still coming off the the hams from their bath).

I am going to keep them in the fridge for at least the next five months (through October) since the wine cellar temp is creeping up now that the weather is finally acting more like spring. Then, they may go back into the wine cellar.

I think that they are now in good shape....and I am sleeping better!

DEFINITELY NOT ROUTINE!