Great article about the history of this iconic American food - from The New York Times:
The Sweet Success of the Spiral-Cut Ham
In the 1930s, Harry J. Hoenselaar was just another ham salesman in Detroit trying to find an edge.
He spent his days handing out samples of honey-glazed ham and teaching drugstore clerks how to slice it for sandwiches. Although he was a master at knifing ham from the bone, he knew there had to be a better way.
His family, which still runs the Honey Baked Ham Company he founded in 1957, says the answer came to him in a dream. With a tire jack, a pie tin, a washing machine motor and a knife, he fashioned the world’s first spiral ham slicer — a contraption that would become one of the world’s great ham innovations.
If an aged country ham is like jazz, funky and improvised, a spiral-cut is the pop music of the ham world — sweet, approachable and easy to eat. Even though ham snobs may look down on it, it’s a rare critic who won’t grab a slice of the tender, pale pink meat given the chance.
Fun story and I did not know the history. I get the Costco spiral hams, cut them up and cryovac them. They take just ten minutes in warm water to thaw and are perfect for a meal. That actually sounds pretty good - haven't had ham for dinner for a while...
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