DATE: Thursday, October 23, 1997            TAG: 9710220196

SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN             PAGE: 07   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

NEW GENERATION: PROGRAM THAT TRAINS YOUTH TO CURE HAMS A WINNER

CURING HAMS at home is not a project for the fainthearted.

It's time-consuming, and it requires much labor and attention to detail.

With one or more varieties of ham usually on sale each week in local supermarkets, curing your own is not something to be entered into lightly.

But 18 families, including two in Suffolk, recently completed a ham curing project conducted by Isle of Wight County 4-H extension agent Teresa Weaver.

Participants had an opportunity to have their hams judged at the Isle of Wight County Fair and, later, at the State Fair of Virginia. And at least one was a big winner.

Al Pendleton, who lives on Sleepy Hole Road, a stone's throw from Nansemond River High School, participated with his 12 year-old daughter, Victoria, known as Tory.

Elaine Colston, whose home on Seabreeze Lane is in Bennett's Creek Landing, just east of the Mills E. Godwin, Jr. Bridge, also signed up with her two sons, Ryan, 13, and Scott, 10.

``My wife, Michelle, saw an article about it and showed it to me,'' recalls Pendleton, a nuclear engineering technician at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, who lives on 30 acres of land which the family farms, raising livestock - chickens, goats, cattle, and horses - and a few crops.

It was Pendleton who persuaded Colston, the head of the nuclear support facilities planning yard at the shipyard, to suggest the idea to her family.

Each family could cure up to six hams. The Pendletons and the Colstons took their full allotment, provided by V. W. Joyner and Company, of Smithfield, for $10 each. The Pendletons ended up with 113 pounds to cure and the Colstons, 110 pounds.

``V. W. Joyner provided the hams at cost,'' says Pendleton. ``They stayed open one night in February, gave us a tour, and gave us instructions on how to cure the hams. Teresa and the 4-H had also put together a packet of information for the project.''

Once the hams were carted home, they had to be sprinkled with saltpeter, or sodium nitrate, and then salted down, especially in the joints and close to the bone.

``I thought it was pretty weird when we first got started,'' Ryan said.

``I thought it was pretty neat!'' Scott countered.

The hams were then packed in salt and chilled. The temperature of the hams had to be closely monitored and recorded twice daily.

``Checking the temperatures every morning got old with these guys after awhile,'' Colston recalled,

After a week or two, the hams had to be taken out and rubbed down with salt again. Then it was back into more salt - the Pendletons added sugar to the mix at this point - and back down for the remainder of a 40-day period. Then, the hams were taken out of the salt, given a wipe-down, and hung up to air dry for about two weeks.

``After they're cured in salt, then you smoke them,'' explains Pendleton. ``That's roughly 20 days. After they were smoked, we left them hanging in the smokehouse. A week before the county fair, we brought 'em home.''

Both families used the smokehouse belonging to Jean and Charles Barcroft of Ivor. (See story, Page 3)

The hams produced some other pleasant surprises. At the Isle of Wight County Fair, a Colston ham took fifth place and a Pendleton ham took seventh place.

But the real surprise came at the Virginia State Fair. The Colstons did not enter having already promised their hams to family and friends. But a Pendleton ham won a blue ribbon for first place in the Home-Cured Country Ham, short-cut division contest.

So far, all of the hams the families have cut into have turned out fine, which pleasantly surprised Colston.

``I was amazed,'' she said. ``I figured it was a $60 gamble.''

Tory said, ``They're pretty good but pretty salty. I'm not wild about salt but for my brother, Alex, the more salt, the better.''

``I like it,'' Scott said. ``Even though I don't like Smithfield ham, I thought it tasted pretty good.''

Both families said they derived a great deal of satisfaction from their participation in the project.

``In this kind of project,'' says Pendleton, ``there's a lot of fun and a lot of parental interest. A lot of parents remembered their parents doing it. It was a sense of history, passing along something that is becoming lost. We take a lot of pride in producing our own food: eggs, milk, cheese. I consider it a big part of Tory's education.''

Colston, who was raised in Annapolis, Md., said her family, like the Pendletons, plans to do it again.

``I think it was as much to say we've done it as anything else,'' says Colston, whose sons attend Portsmouth Catholic Elementary School (and didn't tell anyone at school about the project). ``I used to can but that took up a lot of time. But the fact that we're eating something that sat outside for three months, without refrigeration, seems strange.''

Adds Scott: ``I think we're going to do it again next year.''

``We're planning to do it again,'' says Pendleton. ``We had a lot of fun doing it. And we enjoyed the benefits, and the end results. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by DAWSON MILLS

Al and Tory Pendleton, above, won first place in the Home-Cured

Country Ham, short-cut, contest the State Fair. Scott, Elaine and

Ryan Colston, below, took fifth place at the Isle of Wight County

Fair.

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