By Thelma Taylor

Kentucky country cured ham is a famous delicacy. Refrigeration and other methods of food processing has outdated much of early American methods of food preservation, but Kentucky cured ham has held it own and is a favorite food in many choice restaurants and in homes especially at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. The price per pound has always been high but people have been willing to pay it.

The late Howard Taylor put Cynthiana on the map with his cured hams. His hams were chosen to represent Kentucky tradition in the Folklife Festival at Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. in 1972. Taylor's ham won first place at the state fair in 1974 when he was 74 years old. The 16 pound ham was auction offfor $9,600. After the sale, Taylor announced to the large breakfast crowd that he had 6,000 more just like it at home and that he'd sell them much cheaper than the $600 a pound paid for his winning ham.

Taylor was like Abraham Lincoln in his bids for political offices. He took a lot of losses in his years of entering hams at the fair before he became the winner, a very prestigious honor in the ham industry. Taylor entered a ham in the state fair contest for the first time in 1966 and took second place. First place should be just around the comer. Not so. He tied for third, came in tenth, and wasn't in the running some years.

"Why don't you quit," he was advised, "They don't like you kind of hams any more."

"But my hams are the real Kentucky country cure hams," he explained. At the last minute, he and his vice president, Eva Cheek, chose a ham for the 1974 contest with no enthusiasm and no expectations of winning. When the ham was declared a winner, the 74year-old meat producer had reached his zenith. Telephones rang all over Cynthiana. He wanted everyone to go to the fair to watch him receive his award and see the ham auctioned off for charity.

Taylor's father cured harms in a smokehouse in his yard as most farm families did in the early part of the 1900s. They used what his family needed and peddled the rest to neighbors and friends. As other households quit wring hams, the demand grew for Taylor's hams each year. In 1957, they sold 115 hams. In 1969, they cured 3,085 hams which was not nearly enough to fill the orders. As demands increased, so did the size of the processing plant.

There was no secret to curing and cooking Taylor Farm hams. He used the same curing method that his father used when he built his smokehouse in 1895. That building became a room in the country ham plant. Customers and guests entered that room first and got to hear the whole history of Taylor hams while they were graciously offered a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee. Hospitality and a rural atmosphere probably did as much toward selling the hams as the actual taste of the pork product.

Taylor usually told about the curing process and Eva Cheek explained their method of cooking the hams.

Green (fresh) hams were hand rubbed with a mixture of salt, salt peter, black pepper and brown sugar. They cured for a week. The curing mix was rubbed into the ham again until it refused to stick to the surface of the hams. The hams cured for six weeks. They were washed, sacked and hung to dry for two weeks in the smoking room. After drying, they were smoked for three days to a week depending on the humidity.

Hickory wood from the farm was put in an outside furnace and piped into the smoking room day and night until the ham became a light pecan rotor. They were moved to the aging room and reposed there until some ham-loving person was willing to pay the price for Kentucky country cured ham. They were shipped cooked or uncooked throughout the United States. Christmas time was given over to hams at Taylor Farms. One movie star ordered barns each years as Christmas gifts.

Eva Cheek soaked a ham overnight before cooking it. The water was poured off and the ham was placed in electric roasters and covered with water to which was added two cups of brown sugar and one cup of vinegar. The water was heated to 350 degrees and the ham was cooked until tender. Water was added to keep the container full. Usually, a 16 pound ham took four to five hours to cook until it was tender.

Cheek removed the bone and skin and placed the ham in a baking pan. She "dressed" the ham with a glaze made from one-half cup of cornmeal, one-half cup brown sugar and one teaspoon of cinnamon. She cooked the ham in the over at a temperature of 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until the surface was golden brown. She removed it from the oven, cooled it, sliced it and served it with homemade biscuits!

Taylor was a very generous man and always had the makings of a ham snack in the refrigerator. He'd send ham sandwiches as a token of appreciation and served them at charity fund raisers and at celebrations such as the Governor's Breakfast.