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KENTUCKY BACON
Father's Country Farms (Charles Gatton Jr.)
Father's Country Hams (Lorene Gatton)
Meacham Country Hams (Rodman Meacham)
Meacham Country Hams (William Meacham)
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Interviews and photographs by Amy Evans.
Nancy
Newsom Mahaffey
Col. Bill Newsom's Aged Kentucky Country Ham
Newsom's Old Mill Store
208 E. Main St.
Princeton, KY 42445
270-365-2482
www.newsomscountryham.com
Nancy Newsom Mahaffey, known far and wide as The Ham Lady, is one of the few women who dry-cures pork. Her family has been curing ham in the town of Princeton, Kentucky, for generations. H.C. Newsom, Nancy’s grandfather, worked from a cure, handed down in an eighteenth century family will. Before long, he was selling hams and bacon in the family-owned general store. Eventually, his son, Colonel Bill Newsom, started working on his own and developed a traditional sugar cure, which caught the attention of famous eaters like James Beard. Nancy grew up learning the value of tradition and the secret to her father’s success. Today, she carries on her father’s legacy in the same store, curing the same way, in the same ham house, catering to some of the same customers who have frequented Newsom’s Old Mill Store for decades.
• • • Listen to this 3-minute audio clip of Nancy Newsom Mahaffey talking about how she developed an interest in her father's business. [Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.]
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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
SUBJECT: Nancy Newsom Mahaffey
DATE: August 24, 2005
LOCATION: Col. Newsom’s Old Mill Store – Princeton, KY
INTERVIEWER: Amy Evans
Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 and I'm in Princeton, Kentucky at Colonel Newsom's Hams with Nancy Newsom. Nancy would you mind saying your name and your birthday for the record, please, ma'am?
Nancy Newsom: My name is Nancy Newsom Mahaffey, and my birthdate is June 11, 1955; so I'm 50.
And you were just pointing to me at this brochure that you gave me about the generations of ham curing in your family and of the general store. Can you talk about that in a little bit more detail?
Okay; the business--our business began in 1917 and it was a general store and it sold everything from goldfish to plants to pulled plants for the--for early planting to groceries, crackers in barrels, and--and molasses in a sack believe it or not. It was put into a sack that was like a--a heavy nail--paper nail bag and that's what they used to put molasses in and he had an array of candies. He sold the hams that he cured--
This is your grandfather?
Yes; his name was H. C. Newsom and this was in 1917. He
bought the business which is a vacant building right now here on Main
and right next door to the--my existing building. And we've been down
at this end of town for 88 years now. And he started the general store
business; it was the only general store in the area. He sold all the things
I mentioned plus he sold hams--country hams. He sold hams that he cured
himself and he also cured them for his family to have for consumption,
which was a thing that was done in this area 
anyway.
And then he also sold country hams. And then my father came along; he
changed the business somewhat and expanded upon the grocery business and
fresh meat business and also bought hams from farmers and also cured hams
himself out on a--a farm, a small farm--he cured a few hundred hams. Then
in 1963 the federal government decided that they could no longer buy meat
from farms without it having been inspected, so he at that time took an
old process and put it in a new building, he said; so he built this ham
house facility which is the same one I use today and the same one I obtain
all the [aging] molds out of today. And so he ran the--my grand-daddy,
H. C., ran the business and from 1917 to 1933 and he passed away at age
49 and left my father who was 18 with two small brothers, one around eight
years old and one eighteen months and a sister living at home with two
small children, three and four, and a mother who had--had polio. Needless
to say they didn't have any money. And so my father began running the
store at 18 and began doing what his father had done, and then like I
said expanded on the grocery business and the ham business. In 1975 James
Beard, our father of Gourmet Cooking, discovered our ham and began to
write about it in a syndicated--he wrote about it first in a syndicated
column for American Airline magazine and then started using it in the
Culinary Institute in New York and thus our mail order was born. So we
had all of our cards--all of our names on three by five cards; we didn't
have a computer system.
And it went along like that and--and it gradually--the mail order grew by small bits here and there and then at one time we sold to Dean and Deluca before they were ever a chain store and some other places like that. And then in 1987 we lost our old grocery business to a fire. It was--the floor and all was gutted by fire; we lost everything but the hams, my grandfather's chopping block and a meat saw and the ham files, so that told me where we needed to go--that we needed to expand more upon the ham business. And so I came over to--one door over to 210 East Main instead of 208 East Main. We still call it 208--not to confuse the customer though--and started a country store and a small gourmet food type business. So then I expanded upon the gourmet foods and then began to incorporate the country ham as the gourmet food that it was because it was a more aged product. It was more of a hand-handled product and more of a natural product. And so I added the things--things to it and my father would come in on Saturdays and keep the business for me because I was raising my family and he would--he's told me that the gourmet preserves would not sell. So after he would work on a Saturday, come Monday he'd say I sold some more of your junk today. [Laughs] I sold--no, I sold some more of your junk Saturday.
And--and so he began to see that the gourmet concept was
work--going to work. Then about five years ago, we incorporated our Internet
business to it. The location of which I have my building in at present
and which has been here since 1987 was built in around 1840 for a woolen
mill and then it became a flour mill in 19--1892; it was--it was actually
built and is a relic of the Industrial Revolution. After 1892 it be--it
was still a flour mill for sometime until it became a grain operation
and then grain storage for--for customers and--and whatnot housing grain
and then--then later became a garden store for me and then became--became
my exclusive store in '87. The ham business today is merging more toward
Internet and mail order all the time; the Internet, like I said was developed
five years ago. It has been developed upon writings of people that we've
been more than blessed. Our--our blessings have been more than monetary--a
lot more than monetary because it's not all about money for us; it's about
the tradition and it's about keeping a true tradition and something the
public is actually not misrepresent--we don't misrepresent our product.
To claim you do something the old fashioned way and then you don't and
you use artificial means is a deception of the public…So what I'm
hoping to do here I'd guess you call me a traditionalist. [Laughs] I guess
that's what I'm called; I don't know, but--. Anyway, I became a Kentucky
Colonel. I forgot what year it was; it was in the '90s, which I was 
extremely
proud of being. My father had been a Kentucky Colonel before me. Someone
had noticed that I had been running this business for so long and they
asked me how long I'd been curing the hams and I told them and they got
a hold of the nearest Congressman who--who got the Governor me to give
me that--that--
Can you explain that a little bit for the record?
Kentucky Colonel is--in Kentucky if you have a specialty in an area or an area that you have excelled in, which was beneficial for the public or humanity as a whole then they issue--the Governor issues a certificate and a title of a Kentucky Colonel. So that's basically what it is; so--. But anyway, today we still do our hams with no sodium nitrate; we cure our hams with no sodium nitrate. We hand-handle all of them. I think we're the only national ham business that does not--that sells retail only. If my--if any restaurants buy from me they buy at my retail because they know what they're--they know what they're getting and this--probably the smallest ham producer in the nation; so--.
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I wonder if the hams that your grandfather was curing, how that cure recipe has changed over the years if at all, and if that was something that was written down or--?
Well actually it came from--it came from an old will from the late 1700s. And the Newsom family moved to Kentucky from Virginia after the land was depleted from tobacco farming and they were giving a land grant of 1,600 acres along this--here in Kentucky along the Princeton, Caldwell County--oh well anyway, Princeton and Hopkinsville line--somewhere along there. And to my knowledge it hasn't changed any. I think that each family--it's pretty much true that way for anybody who still produces hams on a farm. They usually use what was brought to the--given--what was taught to them beforehand--before that because I've seen all kinds of cures come through here, you know people that wanted us to cut a ham for them and whatnot. I've seen cures that didn't involve smoking. I've seen them that involve black pepper and salt, and I've seen them salt and brown sugar, which is--ours is an old-fashioned sugar cure and a connotation for "old-fashioned" sugar cure method. But the sugar is not your curing agent. Your salt is the curing agent with smoking a relative preservative in the ham.
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Uh-hm; well how did you develop the interest in curing hams and maintaining this kind of business in your hometown?
Well
I would say that I hated this business when I was small because it took
my parents away from me and they were older parents and it--it just pretty
well depleted their energy for having anything left for me as a selfish
child wanting attention. And so I mainly--I became involved because my
father was--his health was failing and I realized that my brother was
nowhere around and that if something happened to him the ham business
would fall on me--what stage of cure, if they were in salt--when would
they come up? You know if they needed re-salt, how much to do you know;
so I began to learn these things on my own without him recognizing when--when
I was learning. And that was the only way that I really learned it.
So we were talking about you learning kind of in secret under your father about ham curing. How old were you when--when you started doing it?NN: I was about 27 actually when I started learning and I--my children were needing school clothes and this and that and it was very productive for me to add to my husband's income at that time in order for us to have the seasonal clothing and the things that the kids needed. So I went to work part-time and went to work full-time after they went in school. And basically I think I grew to love the business. My father and I had a--kind of a unique love for the public, for serving the public and as my father said you're a public--public servant; we're public servants. And then my mother used to laugh and say we could have done something else with our lives but we chose to work hard, you know. [Laughs] But I would say that those kinds of things--and also I have a great joy in being a part of something that is true, traditional, historic, and that kind of thing. It is very--it's a very hard business to hold onto when you're not curing mass--when you're not going for mass production. I know I mean there--I would say there would be other people that could do what I do, but greediness would spoil that in the fact that then--then more production would you know--but my standard of living is--is not too--not too--I don't expect a whole lot of a standard of living as far as material things. And I choose to have more sanity and more energy than less, and I really don't feel like my ham--my ham in a wholesale realm would be--would be a very misunderstood product. If it sat along--if it was hanging along a rack in say Cracker Barrel or somewhere like that they would not identify that ham because most commercial grade hams that they have don't have that aged flavor. When it has that kind of aged flavor and it's that nature a ham then they might not know what they had, you know. So I--I really do like the fact though that it's being placed in the hands of people that are food connoisseurs and people that can--that appreciate what the product really is.
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Do you cure much bacon with your hams? Is that something regular that you produce?
I don't cure regular--I don't cure bacon regularly mainly because the less labor intensive things I can do and, you know, focus the rest of that attention toward my hams, the better off I am that way; but I've--I've been entertaining the idea of a nitrate-free bacon. In fact I have a customer that yesterday on the phone--he's a new customer out of Ohio said be sure and put me on the list for your--for--when you cure some nitrate free bacon. And I said--I told him okay; I said you're going to make sure I cure that bacon aren't you? [Laughs]
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Well and there aren't many--or are there many ham producers who make a nitrate--nitrate free product?
Uh-um, no; I think--I know of maybe--there's maybe two producers in Kentucky that cure without nitrate. I think there's maybe two and I only knew of one until I went to New York to the Fancy Food Show and I found out then that there's--there's--I think that there's one more--one more of us. I think that I'm the only one that does a straight ambient cure and that does--and I don't cure year-round. I--I--you know I know that other producers have other processes and some of them they do sort of like that in which they let them age longer and whatnot; to my knowledge I don't know of anyone that does it--of course all of us producers are different in some way or another as far as our cure goes.
Can you explain your process and talk more about the ambient cure and what you look for in the ham and the white spots with the aging and that kind of thing?
Okay; my ham process of course begins with--with the fresh ham. I cure two kinds of fresh ham. One of the fresh hams is from a free-range pig and is free-range pork and the other one isn't. I cure more of the--more of the one that isn't simply due to the fact that it's as not a knowledgeable subject by the general public; it's a more expensive product to start out with a fresh ham.
Anyway, we take--and I--I calculate the measure of what I use on my hams in salt and sugar certain--as proportionately to this old recipe that I have according to the total poundage and break it down that way and we--then we take and we hand rub them for an extensive amount of time because if you use nitrate you can do less rubbing on a ham than you can if you're not using nitrate. If you're not using nitrate, you have to make sure that your ham is beginning to drip and whatnot and--and that you're working up some form of the moisture in--into the ham. We hand rub each one for quite a length of time. In fact, I've measured--I have counted the steps which--all of the steps of movement with the hams and they're handled 18 times before they reach the box.
We then take and we--after we've hand rubbed them with salt and sugar mixture, and we do this in the coldest part of the--time of the year, we take and stack them on the shelves, lace them on the shelves, and then they stay at certain temperatures depending on their poundage and whatnot for a certain number of takes also calculated on their poundage. Sometimes the hams may not stay down as long; it depends on the weather--what the weather is doing outside and how my refrigeration unit as far as--that's the only time I use refrigeration is while they're in salt, so that way I can sleep at night. Otherwise, when it starts warming up--the middle of winter that's not a very good thing for a ham producer if they don't have any refrigeration during that part. That's the only part I don't use any. If I could get by without using it I would, but sometimes we have winters today that warm up during the winter. I think that's one of the main reasons why a lot of producers on the farms quit producing hams like that because I think that they were losing them during the winter due to the weather warming up.
And then after they've stayed down a certain number of days, I take them up and repeat the process all over again and we put them back down. They stay--they stay down another length of days. Then usually the first group is--is coming up by the time that it's almost spring and we hand wash them and give them a bath in the sink and net them and then take them over to the hanging house and from the point of the hanging house they--they hang there until their skins reach a certain dryness that I feel like is--is adequate and just it's kind of a--a feel you have for it of knowing okay, I need to get these hams smoked now because it may get too hot or this or that or the other or the skins are dry enough to smoke them. I do them in lots though of several hundred a lot--300 or 400 a lot, sometimes 600 a lot and do them in lots like that. Of course, all this is done according to the federal government standards of all the paperwork and everything that goes along with it.
And then after they've hung that length of time and their skins are dry and it's usually on up whenever the spring has dried them and they've drip-dried and I--I pass air over them and it depends on how hot it is, how much air ventilation they use and--and all that kind of thing. And then I usually--I build a fire in an iron kettle; I do it myself. I pride myself on doing that one myself. And I always--I always kind of laugh and say I have some help with that. I had a fellow watching me one day who works for us and it was just amazing how fast that ham--that fire started blazing and then whenever I damped it down, you know how--how much it actually fills that place with smoke. It fills it so full with smoke that I have to be down low when I come out and--and I think the fellows laugh about the added help because I think they feel like that Mr. Bill is watching over us. [Laughs] That's what they feel like, you know. And I do that for several days and I do it until I think they're going to obtain a certain color or just prior to that color because you have to be careful. You over-smoke a ham and it will be black before--you know it--it darkens on its own somewhat.
And then when I get ready to cut them I'll look for the redness of the ham. I have a market for some people that like hams a little bit younger, so I can pull some quicker than others usually starting with the lot that has been down--been in--hanging the longest. Where they're located in the smoke house has a lot to do with it; that has a lot to do with my Prosciutto cure also. It's--it's sort of the same cure but it's a little bit different in--in some of the aging ways and that kind of thing and sometimes according to size and time. So age and time are the only two things that will make a ham red if you're not using nitrate, you know. If you're not using nitrate you don't necessarily have a ham that was put down in January ready for the Kentucky State Fair in August, you know. You just--you're not--I mean you're just not going to have one that's going to be ready enough like that. You can use one from a year before but you couldn't use one for that year if you're doing an ambient cure on them. It depends on how hot the weather is; the hotter the weather the better the ham in the end. And I always laugh and--and say that's the only damn thing I can think of that's good about hot weather is it is good for aging hams.
And the location of our ham house has a lot to do with the particular kind of mold that it has. It's--it's located near--it's not swamp because we don't have swamp here but it's in a very humid area--really humid and--but I could build a smoke house right next to it and it would have a different mold. It would be all of its own, you know. Each one--each one will develop its own mold in it. And basically I like to hang--hang my hams close to 10 months. It depends on whether my crop from the year before has run out or not. Most of the time a ham that is smaller, say from 12 to 14 pounds--may begin to show your aging flecks in it which are salt enzymes.
See, the first--after hanging the ham in the smoke house the first six weeks is the equalization period in which the salt is--penetrates to the bone. In other words it takes the cure, you know; it--and the weather goes along with that you know by being not as cold as what the environment it's been in. It's very tricky when you have hams in salt to keep a ham--to know what temperature you've got to have it at and in other words, if you don't have somebody knowledgeable about--about what you're doing that you know it's supposed to be a certain temperature and not above this and not below that and they think you're being too picky about temperatures, if you're two degrees within range you know there's such a short range that you need to be.
Well I wanted to ask you what it's like being a woman ham producer in this region and in your business, too, in general and what people think of the ham lady.
[Laughs] I really don't know what they think of the ham lady. I'm going to say that among the male specie that sometimes--sometimes it can be seen as a powerful position or a position that has some--quite a bit of expertise and knowledge and whatnot to it and to some gentlemen, they find that very intriguing and--and very attractive--an attracted to--to them and--and then in some areas of business being a woman in business in general, I find sometimes that it's still a man's world and I'm glad it is. I mean I--it can say it’s a man's world. [Laughs] I mean I have no desire to take over you know things. In other words, what I'm saying is I think sometimes it's seen--I fell into this position; I fell into this position you know and I--well I chose it, but I'm saying I chose it because of my father's ill--his health because it gave me flexibility to take care of my parents who were elderly…And so--I think that--I hope--I hope that--that the public in general view what I'm doing as something that's very pure and a tradition and honest and I like to be viewed as a business woman of service which I think that I have done that in this community. I think that my focus is changing now quite a bit, you know on the--my business--I think my business is going toward mail order and whatnot, but I think that it's--I basically think I've been viewed that way. But I think that since my roles have changed--see I was married and I was raising children; now I'm not married and my family has grown. I don't know if they really know where to place me. I don't know if I'm considered an enigma sometimes or if--or--or exactly what it is. But I think most people consider it a unique--unique thing, you know.
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When you were talking about how anything that takes time anymore is a gourmet food product, what do you think the future of ham production in this part of the country and in Western Kentucky specifically is going to be? You think a lot of people will stick with it or will it disappear?
I think the country ham--"country ham business"
is on its way out. I think that gone are the days when it's daily consumption.
Most of it's holiday consumption, which that can--you know that can be
a country ham business' whole business, you know if they do enough--if
they do enough mail order and internet and--and if they have a retail
store and they sell 
enough
hams at Christmas and whatnot. I don't think that--I think that the fact
that first was--first was the issue about blood pressure and salt and
then next was the issue about fat and I don't care how many hams you try
to produce they have a better fat, you know because the hogs are fed a
different way. People are not going to want to eat "fat." They're
just not going to want to eat it. And they've been taught not to eat it.
I think the generation of people that understood and appreciated the ham
business and that kind of thing are gone. I think that people that--I
think it's only going to be like a specialty thing--I really do. I think
that they're always going to sell enough for the country ham producer
that sells ham in restaurants and this and that and it's--it's a Kentucky
nostalgic thing. Yeah; they're going to stay in business but as far as
them counting on hams as an--you know as an every day consumption product
on large order, I think it's on its way out. I said--I said 20 years ago
that the ham business one day would be a dying business. I think it depends
on what direction a country ham producer takes their business and in what
light they start looking at it as, you know and what market that they
continue to try to approach. I don't cure regular--I don't cure bacon
regularly mainly because the less labor intensive things I can do and,
you know, focus the rest of that attention toward my hams, the better
off I am that way; but I've--I've been entertaining the idea of a nitrate-free
bacon. In fact I have a customer that yesterday on the phone--he's a new
customer out of Ohio said be sure and put me on the list for your--for--when
you cure some nitrate free bacon. And I said--I told him okay; I said
you're going to make sure I cure that bacon aren't you? [Laughs]
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Well and there aren't many--or are there many ham producers who make a nitrate--nitrate free product?
Uh-um, no; I think--I know of maybe--there's maybe two producers in Kentucky that cure without nitrate. I think there's maybe two and I only knew of one until I went to New York to the Fancy Food Show and I found out then that there's--there's--I think that there's one more--one more of us. I think that I'm the only one that does a straight ambient cure and that does--and I don't cure year-round. I--I--you know I know that other producers have other processes and some of them they do sort of like that in which they let them age longer and whatnot; to my knowledge I don't know of anyone that does it--of course all of us producers are different in some way or another as far as our cure goes.
Can you explain your process and talk more about the ambient cure and what you look for in the ham and the white spots with the aging and that kind of thing?
Okay; my ham process of course begins with--with the fresh ham. I cure two kinds of fresh ham. One of the fresh hams is from a free-range pig and is free-range pork and the other one isn't. I cure more of the--more of the one that isn't simply due to the fact that it's as not a knowledgeable subject by the general public; it's a more expensive product to start out with a fresh ham.
Anyway, we take--and I--I calculate the measure of what I use on my hams in salt and sugar certain--as proportionately to this old recipe that I have according to the total poundage and break it down that way and we--then we take and we hand rub them for an extensive amount of time because if you use nitrate you can do less rubbing on a ham than you can if you're not using nitrate. If you're not using nitrate, you have to make sure that your ham is beginning to drip and whatnot and--and that you're working up some form of the moisture in--into the ham. We hand rub each one for quite a length of time. In fact, I've measured--I have counted the steps which--all of the steps of movement with the hams and they're handled 18 times before they reach the box.
We then take and we--after we've hand rubbed them with salt and sugar mixture, and we do this in the coldest part of the--time of the year, we take and stack them on the shelves, lace them on the shelves, and then they stay at certain temperatures depending on their poundage and whatnot for a certain number of takes also calculated on their poundage. Sometimes the hams may not stay down as long; it depends on the weather--what the weather is doing outside and how my refrigeration unit as far as--that's the only time I use refrigeration is while they're in salt, so that way I can sleep at night. Otherwise, when it starts warming up--the middle of winter that's not a very good thing for a ham producer if they don't have any refrigeration during that part. That's the only part I don't use any. If I could get by without using it I would, but sometimes we have winters today that warm up during the winter. I think that's one of the main reasons why a lot of producers on the farms quit producing hams like that because I think that they were losing them during the winter due to the weather warming up.
And then after they've stayed down a certain number of days, I take them up and repeat the process all over again and we put them back down. They stay--they stay down another length of days. Then usually the first group is--is coming up by the time that it's almost spring and we hand wash them and give them a bath in the sink and net them and then take them over to the hanging house and from the point of the hanging house they--they hang there until their skins reach a certain dryness that I feel like is--is adequate and just it's kind of a--a feel you have for it of knowing okay, I need to get these hams smoked now because it may get too hot or this or that or the other or the skins are dry enough to smoke them. I do them in lots though of several hundred a lot--300 or 400 a lot, sometimes 600 a lot and do them in lots like that. Of course, all this is done according to the federal government standards of all the paperwork and everything that goes along with it.
And then after they've hung that length of time and their skins are dry and it's usually on up whenever the spring has dried them and they've drip-dried and I--I pass air over them and it depends on how hot it is, how much air ventilation they use and--and all that kind of thing. And then I usually--I build a fire in an iron kettle; I do it myself. I pride myself on doing that one myself. And I always--I always kind of laugh and say I have some help with that. I had a fellow watching me one day who works for us and it was just amazing how fast that ham--that fire started blazing and then whenever I damped it down, you know how--how much it actually fills that place with smoke. It fills it so full with smoke that I have to be down low when I come out and--and I think the fellows laugh about the added help because I think they feel like that Mr. Bill is watching over us. [Laughs] That's what they feel like, you know. And I do that for several days and I do it until I think they're going to obtain a certain color or just prior to that color because you have to be careful. You over-smoke a ham and it will be black before--you know it--it darkens on its own somewhat.
And then when I get ready to cut them I'll look for the redness of the ham. I have a market for some people that like hams a little bit younger, so I can pull some quicker than others usually starting with the lot that has been down--been in--hanging the longest. Where they're located in the smoke house has a lot to do with it; that has a lot to do with my Prosciutto cure also. It's--it's sort of the same cure but it's a little bit different in--in some of the aging ways and that kind of thing and sometimes according to size and time. So age and time are the only two things that will make a ham red if you're not using nitrate, you know. If you're not using nitrate you don't necessarily have a ham that was put down in January ready for the Kentucky State Fair in August, you know. You just--you're not--I mean you're just not going to have one that's going to be ready enough like that. You can use one from a year before but you couldn't use one for that year if you're doing an ambient cure on them. It depends on how hot the weather is; the hotter the weather the better the ham in the end. And I always laugh and--and say that's the only damn thing I can think of that's good about hot weather is it is good for aging hams.
And the location of our ham house has a lot to do with the particular kind of mold that it has. It's--it's located near--it's not swamp because we don't have swamp here but it's in a very humid area--really humid and--but I could build a smoke house right next to it and it would have a different mold. It would be all of its own, you know. Each one--each one will develop its own mold in it. And basically I like to hang--hang my hams close to 10 months. It depends on whether my crop from the year before has run out or not. Most of the time a ham that is smaller, say from 12 to 14 pounds--may begin to show your aging flecks in it which are salt enzymes.
See, the first--after hanging the ham in the smoke house the first six weeks is the equalization period in which the salt is--penetrates to the bone. In other words it takes the cure, you know; it--and the weather goes along with that you know by being not as cold as what the environment it's been in. It's very tricky when you have hams in salt to keep a ham--to know what temperature you've got to have it at and in other words, if you don't have somebody knowledgeable about--about what you're doing that you know it's supposed to be a certain temperature and not above this and not below that and they think you're being too picky about temperatures, if you're two degrees within range you know there's such a short range that you need to be.
Well I wanted to ask you what it's like being a woman ham producer in this region and in your business, too, in general and what people think of the ham lady.
[Laughs] I really don't know what they think of the ham lady. I'm going to say that among the male specie that sometimes--sometimes it can be seen as a powerful position or a position that has some--quite a bit of expertise and knowledge and whatnot to it and to some gentlemen, they find that very intriguing and--and very attractive--an attracted to--to them and--and then in some areas of business being a woman in business in general, I find sometimes that it's still a man's world and I'm glad it is. I mean I--it can say it’s a man's world. [Laughs] I mean I have no desire to take over you know things. In other words, what I'm saying is I think sometimes it's seen--I fell into this position; I fell into this position you know and I--well I chose it, but I'm saying I chose it because of my father's ill--his health because it gave me flexibility to take care of my parents who were elderly…And so--I think that--I hope--I hope that--that the public in general view what I'm doing as something that's very pure and a tradition and honest and I like to be viewed as a business woman of service which I think that I have done that in this community. I think that my focus is changing now quite a bit, you know on the--my business--I think my business is going toward mail order and whatnot, but I think that it's--I basically think I've been viewed that way. But I think that since my roles have changed--see I was married and I was raising children; now I'm not married and my family has grown. I don't know if they really know where to place me. I don't know if I'm considered an enigma sometimes or if--or--or exactly what it is. But I think most people consider it a unique--unique thing, you know.
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When you were talking about how anything that takes time anymore is a gourmet food product, what do you think the future of ham production in this part of the country and in Western Kentucky specifically is going to be? You think a lot of people will stick with it or will it disappear?
I think the country ham--"country ham business" is on its way out. I think that gone are the days when it's daily consumption. Most of it's holiday consumption, which that can--you know that can be a country ham business' whole business, you know if they do enough--if they do enough mail order and internet and--and if they have a retail store and they sell enough hams at Christmas and whatnot. I don't think that--I think that the fact that first was--first was the issue about blood pressure and salt and then next was the issue about fat and I don't care how many hams you try to produce they have a better fat, you know because the hogs are fed a different way. People are not going to want to eat "fat." They're just not going to want to eat it. And they've been taught not to eat it. I think the generation of people that understood and appreciated the ham business and that kind of thing are gone. I think that people that--I think it's only going to be like a specialty thing--I really do. I think that they're always going to sell enough for the country ham producer that sells ham in restaurants and this and that and it's--it's a Kentucky nostalgic thing. Yeah; they're going to stay in business but as far as them counting on hams as an--you know as an every day consumption product on large order, I think it's on its way out. I said--I said 20 years ago that the ham business one day would be a dying business. I think it depends on what direction a country ham producer takes their business and in what light they start looking at it as, you know and what market that they continue to try to approach.
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