The kept ham at the Mecca Restaurant in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina—a Greek-owned politico favorite, serving meat-and-threes—is a comparative babe. It dates to just 1937, the year that Nick Dombalis, grandfather of current owner Paul Dombalis, bought it from a farmer, in town for market, and put it in the front window for all to admire.
At the time, the Dombalis ham was 44 pounds, a real bruiser. In seven decades, it has shrunk to 25 pounds, despite stowage, since 1970, in the restaurant’s freezer. Nowadays, it reappears in the front window infrequently, usually when a longtime customer asks after it. When it does, the ham is only visible for a short while. (In May of 2007, when it last saw the light of day, the sign alongside read, “For security reasons, this will be a one-day viewing only.”)
Advocates of the P.D. Gwaltney ham might point out, rightly so, that, when it comes to country ham, climate-controlled storage is altogether unnecessary. Properly salted and smoked it should last until Kingdom Come. But Paul Dombalis doesn’t apologize for securing the future of a family heirloom, whose import was cemented during the Depression, when a country ham was a symbol of prosperity, worthy of display in a restaurant window.
“It’s an ugly thing,” the third generation owner recently told a newspaper reporter. “It’s just as ugly as it ever was.”
Parse those words and you recognize a mixture of resignation and pride. As in, He’s ugly but he’s ours, the same sort of sentiment expressed by pet owners who remain, beyond reason, beyond reckoning, devoted to cross-eyed cats and cur dogs and all manner of God’s irregular ranks.
Tasting Old Hams
Although I can’t recommend eating 100-year-old ham, or even 70-year-old ham, two-year-olds are worth pursuing. Here are two options:
At the Beaumont Inn, the pride of Bardstown, Kentucky, the Dedman family buys one-year-old hams from local producers. And they promptly hang them for one more year. Visit them and you’ll enjoy a breakfast platter piled high with the mellow goodness that an additional 12 months buys. www.beaumontinn.com
If you’re not able to make the Kentucky trek, dial up Nancy Newsom Mahaffey, proprietor of Colonel Bill Newsom’s Aged Country Hams in Princeton, Kentucky. She will, based upon availability, ship nitrate- and nitrite-free hams that are aged 18 months and sometimes more. www.newsomscountryham.com
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