I had to go see the ham. I kept reading in the newspaper’s museum calendars that they had a 100-year-old ham over in Smithfield, at the Isle of Wight County Museum, which I had driven past scores of times but never stopped in. Finally I said to myself, “How can you pass up the opportunity to see food that’s close to twice as old as you are?”

I mean, I’ve seen a lot of sights in museums. I’ve seen paintings, sculptures, dinosaur bones, rocket ships and Archie Bunker’s easy chair.

Once, in a museum, I saw with my own eyes Queen Elizabeth I’s virginals. (Don’t get flustered, it’s a kind of musical instrument.)

But I had never come across a museum offering to show me antique meat

Besides, I am a big ham fan. Baked ham, smoked ham, ham biscuits, ham and eggs, deviled ham, ham-macaroni-and-cheese casserole. You could probably give me ham ice cream and I’d eat it.

So I finally bestirred myself to get over to Smithfield and the museum one recent morning. It is a charming place, in a nice old bank building, with lots of neat stuff inside: artifacts from Colonial days, historic items from the town’s main industries, a replica of an old-time general store, and the like.

But I had come mainly to see the ancient ham. And there it was, reposing in a glass case.

You could tell this was one venerable ham, all right. This was not just The Ham What Am, this was The Ham What Has Been.

Its skin was dark, almost like mahogany, with deep folds in it from how it had shrunk over the years. It was still recognizably a ham, though. It sported a brass collar identifying it as P. D. Gwaltney Jr.’s pet ham.

An old sign over it proclaimed it the “world’s oldest ham.” Another old sign to the side made the slightly more modest claim of “world’s oldest Smithfield ham.” (You never know, there might be a 101-year-old ham hanging up in Westphalia or somewhere.)

This ham has been famous for a long time. The story is that, after it was cured in 1902, a mix-up in filling an order left it hanging around the Gwaltney plant for a long while. It eventually got noticed by Mr. Gwaltney, who observed that it was still in fine shape and decided to see how long it would stay that way. During the first couple of decades of its life, the ham was taken down, re-peppered and re-hung yearly. And now and then, samples of the meat were taken to demonstrate that it was still “sweet and delicious.”

This Methuselah of meat was then put to work publicizing Gwaltney’s business. It was depicted in the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” newspaper feature and was exhibited in the Chicago Exposition of 1933. Gwaltney had the ham insured for $5,000. The county museum has had it since 1985.

No one’s been sampling the ham any time lately, according to museum Curator Dinah Everett. “With all the dehydration, I doubt that it would be edible,” she said. At best, “it would be something like jerky.”

So in addition to being maybe the world’s oldest ham, it may also be the world’s biggest Slim Jim.

And speaking of big: There’s an old joke that defines “eternity” as “a ham and two people.” Whoever cracked that joke must have seen the museum’s other notable ham on exhibit. This ham started out as 91 pounds and still weighs in at 65 pounds. They say it came off a 900-pound hog, and I’m glad I’m not the one who had to make him give it up.

So I was very impressed. Actually, I have been the curator of some old food myself, namely things I discovered in forgotten containers in the back of my refrigerator. But you wouldn’t want to exhibit any of those in a museum, unless it was the Museum of Disgusting Science.

More large ham news from Smithfield: Everett told me that, in celebration of the town’s 350th birthday this year, folks are fixing to produce the world’s largest ham biscuit on Sept. 28. Mark your calendar.

Finally, the museum’s ham exhibit includes a piece of ham poetry, written for the Gwaltney company in 1923. Part of it goes:

Ham! — when the snow falls and cold winds are blowing!

Ham! — when the golf balls of summer are going!

Ham! — when I meet it, I humbly salaam.

Nice and nutritious, and

Doubly delicious, and

Best of all dishes is — Ham!

Now I feel inspired by that to go make myself a ham sandwich.

I wonder, has any museum out there got a 100-year-old cheese?

Tony Gabriele can be reached at 247-4786 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Why mad:

Oceanic Sharks and Rays Have Declined 70% Since 1970

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/oceanic-sharks-and-rays-have-declined-70-1970-180976890/

All credit to @frozen-chosen. Major news alert.

A large shopping center in the suburbs of Paris is completely destroyed by fire. #FranceRiots pic.twitter.com/75Q78qVj0b

— Paul Golding (@GoldingBF) June 30, 2023

https://twitter.com/goldingbf/status/1674692986775453696?s=46&t=8_MKic6r0krNQ33nEP5Yjw

https://twitter.com/goldingbf/status/1674711583996493825?s=46&t=8_MKic6r0krNQ33nEP5Yjw

https://twitter.com/goldingbf/status/1674697177438859265?s=46&t=8_MKic6r0krNQ33nEP5Yjw

If she gets arrested it will be dramatic as frick. Prepare yourselves.

Archived NY Times article

!bharat