White ham producers sometimes play with words. This is proven by this statement that appears on certain packaging and misleads us all…
It is the perfect “match” with the shells, the mash, the buttered baguette and the au gratin endives. Tasty, practical and cheap, ham has carved a special place for itself in French fridges. In supermarkets, the little pink disk – which has tended to become more gray since the reduction of nitrites – has seen its supply diversified to the point of downright abundance. With or without rind, in a cloth or stewed, reduced in salt, raised without antibiotics: difficult, in the midst of all these more or less “marketing” details that accumulate on the packaging, to distinguish really good ham from weeds…
Food industry experts know better than anyone how to lure us. Some mentions speak directly to our little chauvinistic side. For example, don’t believe that your “Paris” ham was made at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It is more of a historical name, referring to the first hams that were sold in self-service. The code of use for charcuterie only specifies the shape, theoretically cut into squares. It is therefore not a superior guarantee of quality, even if this very Gallic connotation suggests the opposite… Sometimes manufacturers even use an even more vicious strategy: they sow confusion in the consumer’s mind by using two very similar terms that do not nevertheless contain a significant nuance. We still need to discover that…
By chance, have you ever bought a “cooked on the bone” ham and thought it would be a cut above all the others? As a gourmet, you know that the best hams are those that have not been deboned before cooking, right? But this is precisely where the problem lies. Your ham has not been “cooked on the bone” like the one you still sometimes find at your artisan butcher, but “cooked” on the bone. Which really means it was just simmered in a broth that contained bones. Which is not the same at all!
Furthermore, as relayed by UFC-Que Choisir in its buying guide for white hams, the Charcuterie Information Center (CICT) specifies that real ham cooked on the bone “is available for sale with his bones.” Which is unlikely to happen on supermarket shelves… Any advice? For your next croque-monsieur night, don’t be mistaken for a ham at the nooks on the hills. Instead, rely on the Label Rouge or Bleu-Blanc-Cœur logos, which testify to compliance with much more demanding quality charters.
