
DATE: Thursday, October 23, 1997            TAG: 9710220213

SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN             PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT                     LENGTH:  148 lines

MAINTAINING TRADITION THE DARDEN FAMILY MAY BE ONE OF THE LAST HOME-BASED, COMMERCIAL HAM-CURING OPERATIONS IN ISLE OF WIGHT.

IF YOU KNOW someone who thinks life in the country is simple compared with life in the city, bring them by to meet Tommy and DeeDee Darden.

The Dardens manage to juggle a farm, a store and a family and somehow stay on top of it all. But it isn't easy, and it certainly isn't simple.

In addition to everything else, they run what is reputed to be the last home-based commercial ham-curing operation in the county.

``It's very rewarding,'' says DeeDee, 41. ``But it can be real frustrating. Tommy and I both love farming. We're in it together. It's not just his operation. It's our thing.

``Right or wrong, we're doing what we love, although the physical work is nothing compared to the mental strain that goes with it.''

The center of the Dardens' world is the intersection of Bowling Green and Carroll Bridge roads, not too far from Smithfield or Suffolk, but definitely out in the country.

From that junction, fields stretch in all directions. In one corner of the intersection is the store. On the opposite corner is the smokehouse, several bins for grain and sheds to store the equipment. Across the street from the smokehouse, and diagonally across from the store, is the family home. It is the home where Tommy's mother and father lived before them.

``I've always farmed,'' says Tommy, 50. ``In 1982, we started running the store. My father, L. Seward Darden, founded it in the early '50s. We rented it out from 1960 to '82.''

Darden has a desk in the back of the store, across from the slicer where ham is cut to order as customers drop in.

A DTN machine, similar to a computer terminal, sits on his desk, bringing him real-time information about weather and commodities prices. He glances at it frequently.

The store, Tommy explains, used to be a real general store. Now, he says, it's a convenience store, relying on the sale of items such as beer, cigarettes and bread.

In the old days, clothes, fertilizer and gasoline were popular purchases, but you won't find them there now. The gasoline tank was a casualty of environmental regulations. Only a kerosene pump remains outside the store.

The store still exudes an old-time ``general store'' kind of charm that has you looking for the potbellied stove (there isn't one).

In the back, DeeDee produces a well-worn Blue Horse spiral notebook, of the kind used by generations of schoolchildren. It was, she says, a charge book, where purchases were recorded in pencil when customers picked up items ``on account.'' The first entry in the book is Monday, Sept. 12, 1953.

Sliced ham, ham biscuits and ham sandwiches are popular items when the lunch hour approaches. Be sure to describe it as Smithfield-style country ham, Tommy cautions. ``Smithfield Ham'' is a registered trademark.

The taste of Darden's ham is virtually indistinguishable from its city cousin, however.

``We buy the hams, government inspected, from a packing house in Smithfield,'' says Tommy. ``Then we cure them. The curing process involves salting, peppering and smoking. Age is what makes the flavoring and coloring. The older the ham, the deeper the color.

``We've been curing them for years,'' he continues. ``My father built the smoke house years ago, in the middle 1950s.

``The salting process takes 30 to 35 days. We've always cured meat. In the old days, people learned to cure it to survive, living in the country.''

The Dardens cure about 700 hams a year. Some 250 of them are cooked and cut to order in the store for sale as sliced ham, ham sandwiches and ham biscuits.

The operation comes under the Virginia Department of Agriculture since they don't sell out of state.

``We had a lot of people buying a ham,'' explains Tommy, ``and they didn't come back. We began to ask ourselves why and decided it was because a lot of people don't know how to handle them or cook them. So we decided we'd sell them already cooked.''

The hams, in their natural, uncooked state, have to be scrubbed to rid them of remnants of the curing process. Then they need to be soaked to reduce the saltiness.

It can be a lot of effort, particularly for today's busy cooks. By selling them cooked and sliced, the Dardens save their customers a lot of work while assuring uniformly high quality.

They've turned genuine country ham into a convenience food.

Like caviar and other gourmet fare, it is - at first - an acquired taste. But once you've tried it, says Tommy, ``there's nothing else quite like it. It's unique in its taste. It's kind of salty, and people who aren't from the area aren't too sure at first, but once they start eating it, they really like it.''

Although identified by county Extension Agent Robert Goerger as the last family curing operation in the county, Tommy is reluctant to take on the title.

``I've heard of others,'' he says. ``But they've gotten older or passed on.''

The Dardens used to raise livestock - hogs, cows, and goats - but today their cash crops consist of peanuts, cotton, corn, soybeans and wheat.

``My father bought this land in 1947,'' says Tommy, walking through a field behind the store. ``People had farmed here for years, but they were moving on. The Depression was so hard on farm people that they remembered it into the '40s and '50s.

``Mechanization took over in farming communities,'' he explains. ``There used to be a lot of little farms, but mechanization has swallowed them up. They can't compete and that's a shame. We farm 550 acres and we're considered a real little farm. Most of the land that's worked today is rented.''

Tommy, who has a brother in Ohio and a sister who lives near Smithfield, has never strayed far from his roots.

DeeDee, who has three older brothers, grew up in Suffolk. Her parents are deceased. Born and raised on a farm, she went to Virginia Tech before going to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

She worked for a while in Fredericksburg before being transferred to Isle of Wight, where she met Tommy. They have been married 12 years.

It is Tommy's second marriage. His first wife, Linda, to whom he was married for 17 years and with whom he had two now-grown children, died in 1983.

Tommy and DeeDee have one daughter, Carrie, 10, who helps out around the farm and the store.

``When we go into the field,'' says DeeDee, ``Carrie tags along. She's always with us. She's really grown up in the store. She wants to study entomology.''

Does she hope to follow in her parents footsteps and farm? ``No,'' she says without hesitation, `` 'cause mom and dad talked me out of it and said it's hard work. They work very hard.''

The farm operation grosses about $200,000 in a good year, says Tommy. A bad year can see revenues cut to a quarter of that. The store, he adds, has annual gross sales of $75,000 to $100,000.

``We're really a small operation,'' says DeeDee, ``when it comes to farming. There's just Tommy and me, and Carrie, and one part-time retired man who helps out.''

Ask DeeDee about their outside interests and the conversation turns right back to the farm and the community in which it is located.

``We enjoy riding around looking at crops,'' she replies. ``Visiting neighbors. We don't take vacations. Tommy likes staying home.

``With the weather and all,'' she continues, ``farming can be the most rewarding job in the world and the most frustrating thing you'll ever do.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by MICHAEL KESTNER

Dee Dee and Tommy Darden who operate Darden's Country Store, may be

one of the last home-based, commercial ham curing operations in Isle

of Wight.

Billy and Tommy Barcroft's home-cured ham won Grand Champion at the

Virginia State Fair in Richmond. The Barcrofts and other famililes

in Isle of Wight, Suffolk and Windsor participate in a program that

helps train folks to cure hams.

Tommy Darden prepares a sandwich using ham he has cured at his

family smokehouse. The sandwiches and biscuits are sold at Darden's

Country Store.

Dee Dee Darden plays with family pets outside Darden's Country

Store, at the intersection of Bowling Green and Carroll Bridge Roads