A traditional Swedish Christmas ham
A Christmas ham or Yule ham is a ham often served for Christmas dinner or during Yule in Northern Europe and the Anglosphere. The style of preparation varies widely by place and time.
Despite the common claim that the tradition of eating ham is related to the Germanic pagan ritual of sacrificing a wild boar known as a sonargöltr to the Norse god Freyr during harvest festivals, this is highly dubious. In fact, in the United States, ham only became popular as a Christmas food in the 20th century.
American traditions
As of 2019, Americans purchase about as much ham as turkey around the holiday season. This was a long time coming. Ham began being mentioned as a Christmas dish in around 1900, and started growing in popularity in about 1960. The holiday ham began being promoted by Armour & Company in 1916 as part of its marketing efforts for its novel industrially quick-cured and less salty hams. The baked Christmas ham with a clove-studded, diamond-hatched sugar glaze which became popular in the 20th century was introduced in the 1930s. Glazed hams had long been popular long before that, but until the 1880s, they were usually glazed with stock, not sugar, and were not associated with Christmas.
The sugar-glazed ham has become identified with Southern cooking.
There are also various regional recipes. Stuffed ham is popular in southern Maryland, and particularly St. Mary's County, where it is traditional to stuff a corned ham with greens such as kale and cabbage. This tradition has been around in the area for at least 200 years. Similar stuffed hams are also sometimes prepared in Kentucky.
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