The denizens of Beauneville are great lovers of ham. At Ackerman's Market on Main Street, you can sample and purchase hams from around the world. From Italy, there is Prosciuttto di Parma, Prosciutto di San Daniele and Prosciutto di Praga; from Germany, Ammerlander, Schwarzwalder and Westfalischer Schinken, the last of which is made from acorn-fed pigs and smoked over beechwood and juniper branches.
Jambon de Bayonne comes from the Gascony region of France, and carries the tangy flavor of Basque red peppers. From Spain, jamon serrano from Trevelez is made from the white Iberian pig, while jamon iberico and Portuguese presunto use the meat of the black iberian pig (fed exclusively on acorns).
Pigs, it seems, like acorns as well as apples.
From the Philippines, the Hamon de Bola comes in many varieties; from Bulgaria, there is elenski but; from Montenegro, njeguska prsuta, which is difficult to pronounce but easy to eat. From China, you can buy jinhua, a critical ingredient in the famous dish known as Buddha Jumps Over The Wall. Many Beauneville denizens would happily jump over a wall for a slice of jinhua. You can even buy the diabolical ham from Khazakistan, made exclusively from wild boar meat, pickled in a mixture of goat urine, salt and hot red peppers, then smoked over yak dung. There is a legend that the brutal Khazakhs force their prisoners to eat ham without beer to wash it down.
But of all the hams in the world, the grandest ham of all is the Beauneville Ham.
A Beauneville Ham is the apotheosis of pig.
Each year, in May, at the Apple Blossom Festival, four and twenty Beauneville's Best pigs are selected from the Spring litter. The chosen pigs -- who happily volunteer for the honor -- are transferred to Uncle Dave's Farm just outside of town, where they are fattened exclusively on a diet of Beauneville Beauties.
Nobody knows why they call it Uncle Dave's Farm. Presumably, after some guy named Dave, who had nieces and nephews. The current proprietor is Rufus Whipplesnoot.
At the farm, the pigs are offered every possible pig amenity. Spacious pens. Large feed troughs, with ample quantities of food. Lots of lovely mud for wallowing. Piped-in music -- mostly Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, with some Schubert, Schumann and Brahms mixed in. Walls of the pens are decorated with reproductions of great works of art. A concierge is on duty at all times to attend to special needs. And the children of Beauneville name each pig, and make regular visits.
After a summer of luxury, the pigs are ready for what locals delicately refer to as "transformation". At the Apple Harvest Festival in October, the children of Beauneville say goodbye to the pigs, after which they are led to the Transformation House.
Shortly thereafter, forty-eight fresh hams emerge, together with pork loins, shoulders, bellies and tubs of stuff they use to make sausage and scrapple. The hams are cured with salt and apple brandy, then smoked with wood from Beauneville Beauty trees. The smoked hams are hung in cool rooms underground, where they age for almost two years.
Each year, on the first weekend of September, when most Americans celebrate Labor Day, the citizens of Beauneville celebrate the Beauneville Ham. For on the first Monday of September, by custom, the seal on the aging room is broken, and the hams from two years ago are carried with great ceremony to the lawn of the Beaune Estate. There, the townspeople gather and applaud as the Grand Marshal of the Hams carefully takes a ceremonial knife and cuts the first slice.
