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The late Dewey King Knight, a neighbor who married my father鈥檚 double first cousin, Lucy McCall, would stop by our house two or three mornings a week just to find out how many biscuit middles I had eaten for breakfast.

He got a kick out of hearing I had eaten a half-dozen or more.

I was hooked on country ham long before medical science discovered cholesterol to be an enemy of the human circulatory system.

My former neighbor for over 30 years, Jerald Shivers, used to drive a delivery route for the Colonial Baking Company. Jerald insisted there were only two kinds of bread and both began with a 鈥淐鈥� 鈥� Colonial Bread and corn bread.

Well, for me there鈥檚 only one kind of real ham and it also begins with a 鈥淐鈥� 鈥� country ham.

I know, I know. There are sugar cured hams and 鈥減icnic鈥� hams and the like. But most of them are actually pork shoulders.

On occasion, I ordered ham and eggs for breakfast in a restaurant, and the waitress asked, 鈥淲ould you like city ham or country ham?鈥� I did my best to hide my look of dismay. Quite frankly, I have difficulty using the word 鈥渃ity鈥� and the word 鈥渉am鈥� in the same sentence. The is nothing 鈥渃ity鈥� about ham.

The curing of real country ham is becoming a lost art. Oh, the days when the meat box was filled to the top with pork and salt, and the smell of hickory smoke penetrated the air. Smokehouses of the past were filled with the most delightful aromas. The rich smells left behind over the years by slow smoke and curing meat are indescribable. My best attempt would be to say it had a delicious earthiness about it.

When I was a boy, our family celebrated Christmas each year with my Granny Lena鈥檚 family, the Bradfords, on the Sunday after Christmas in New Middleton. The event took place at the home of my great-uncle, Carson 鈥淪tumpy鈥� Bradford.

The Christmas dinner table always showcased three kinds of ham. One was a big sugar-cured ham, tender, pink and sweet. Then, there was a big platter of fried country ham. The third ham was an old country ham that had been boiled. It was prepared to perfection. It had a deep, rich red-wine color to it. And the fat was creamy yellow in color. And salty!?! Who wee! If you ate much of that ham, your tongue would be raw. And you would have to spend the rest of the day around the watering hole trying to quench your thirst.

But that ham was fantastic! A piece of it would flavor everything else you had on your plate. Never was a common biscuit so honored as to have a piece of that ham laid between it. It makes me thirsty just thinking about it.

One of my favorite restaurants is the Log Cabin Pancake House in Gatlinburg. Once or twice a year, I visit there for breakfast. When I do, I order country ham and eggs. It is real country ham, center sliced. That piece of ham is so big it hangs off each side of the plate. It takes no small amount of resolve to eat a whole center slice of real country ham. So far, I鈥檝e always been up to the task. When I am finished, my plate is clean and the little bowl that held the red-eyed gravy is empty. The only thing left is the round ham bone.

When I was growing up, my mother would often say, 鈥淢oderation in all things.鈥� In my humble opinion, a center slice of real country ham twice a year is not going to hurt anybody.

And it won鈥檛 hurt you either. Makes you hunger just thinking about it, doesn鈥檛 it? If you, by chance, aren鈥檛 living out in the 鈥渃ountry,鈥� it will take you back there.

Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall