Let's ham it up

By Pauline D Loh (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-30 10:05

Chinese ham, flavorsome, salty yet sweet, smoky but meaty, plays an indispensable part in the country's culinary art.

The Spanish rave about jamon Serrano, their ham from the mountains. The Italians are proud of their prosciutto or Parma ham. The French would eat naught but jambon de Bayonne.

But when the Chinese talk about ham, it must be the very best Yunnan ham from Xuanwei, or its Zhejiang cousin, Jinhua ham.

Let's ham it up

There's something mysterious about this fierce territorial pride since all ham starts out as raw, salted pork haunches. However, the real connoisseurs claim if you cured a ham anywhere else but in Xuanwei or Jinhua, you will never get the same depth of flavor.

It's all about terroir - to borrow the French term for vineyards - which is the micro-climate of temperature, sunshine, rain, minerals, soil, feed and even the air that goes into the rearing of the pampered pigs.

The most fortunate are the Yunnan porkers. Thanks to serendipitous alchemy, the Xuanwei pigs are bred to give plenty of dense lean meat and creamy fat. Yunnan, of course, is also blessed with its rock salt mines - another important factor that makes Xuanwei hams such popular gifts.

Witness those pipa-shaped parcels being lugged around at Kunming International Airport. They are not some weirdly warped musical instruments but entire legs of Xuanwei ham waiting to be divided among eager relatives back home.

Xuanwei hams are so good that a canned version actually won an award way back at the 1915 San Francisco Exposition to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal.

Let's ham it up

Unfortunately, the ham's continued international advance was interrupted by two world wars and a civil war. But who's to say that some day soon the best restaurants in the world will not be serving thinly sliced Yunnan ham to favored diners?

There is enough of a fascination with Chinoiserie chic and Chinese food as it is.

But what does it taste like compared to the Mediterranean cousins? It is flavorsome to the point of pungency, salty yet sweet, smoky but meaty and full of that mysterious fifth element the Japanese call umami.

That is why many restaurants use a Chinese ham hock as the starter for their stock. As my father used to say: "An opera diva is known for her clarity of tone. A master chef is known by the richness of his stockpot."

Let's ham it up

We have the good fortune to have a home near Kunming. One of the first things we do when we go back is to pick up a hunk of Xuanwei ham. This will flavor our soups, add depth to our stir-fries of mainly vegetables from the garden and provide that special something to our home-cooked dishes when we have company.

To us, the ham is an indispensable part of our larder repertoire.

Let us share some of our favorite Xuanwei ham dishes with you, and while you are experimenting with them, maybe this little bit of trivia may excite you.

Zhuo Lin, wife of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, was the daughter of the famous Xuanwei ham entrepreneur, Pu Zaiting. It was his canned ham that won the International Expo award. When Zhuo passed away in July, the entire city of Xuanwei turned out to mourn her.