SC - prices in 1520

[Decker, Terry D.]

Mordonna22 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 9/22/1999 7:59:37 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
> oftraquair at hotmail.com writes:
> 
> <<
>  and though you can have fresh ham, usually the word also indicates that the
>  meat has been cured with salt, whether dry or in brine, and may or may not
>  have been smoked as well. >>
> 
> That has not been my experience, that would probably be a local variant.
> To me, Ham is the cut.  It usually indicates to me the hip and attached thigh
> of pork (the meat of any member of the suidae family).  If it is smoked, it
> is "smoked ham" ; if salt cured, then "Cured Ham" or "Virginia Ham," or even
> "Salt cured ham", if treated with brown sugar, then "Sugar Cured Ham",
> etc.......
> Just "ham" means to me that it's uncured, or "Fresh Ham"
> 
> Mordonna

So if you go into a delicatessen or market or restaurant where you live
and order a ham sandwich, you get a fresh, uncured ham sandwich? Really?
How about ham and eggs?

Not questioning, just surprised. Now, if you actually lived and spent
all your time on your own farm butchering your own hogs, and ate only
hams from those hogs, I could see how this would be extremely likely,
and this is how, I gather, you've spent at least part of your life. I
think it's possible that your own experience may once have been standard
usage of the term, but may not currently be so, going by popular
consensus. (My lady wife insists the language I speak is no more English
than a mesohippus is a modern horse, and while an idealist would prefer
the language to remain in a form he/she can handle, a realist would
admit that it changes.) 

I do think, though, that it's been demonstrated that while ham is indeed
the anatomical portion you mention, (with the possible exception of
picnic hams and Bath Chap hams, which are basically fake hams made from
other cuts of pork, and so called because the intent is to evoke ham,
I'm not aware of any other cut of meat that is called ham, while bacon
can be just about anything) other animals outside the suidae family can
provide hams, including deer, mutton, bear, and even dog.

In fairness, though, I have to admit when I go and buy a ham sandwich, I
don't expect it to be dog. Not even in Chinatown. ;  ) 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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