Hams in the trees at Bailiffscourt Hotel

This is a Bailiffscourt food experiment to see if we can cure a ‘Parma’ style ham of our own. It is not for sale and we are not using it on any of our menus!
The hams were raised into the trees to cure in the salty sea weedy on shore breezes on the 16th June 2009.
The curing process started forty five days earlier, Bailiffscourt Head Chef Russell Williams and Group Head Chef Martin Hadden were intrigued as to whether they would be able to cure their own ham and then use the naturally salty on shore breezes to air dry the hams over a twelve month period.
The initial stage of the curing process involved a thirty day period of rubbing salt and spices into the pork legs, between each application the legs were wrapped, refrigerated and pressed. After this time the hams had to be washed and dried, then hung in a warmish humid room. Then a few days later a final application of lard and cracked black pepper were rubbed into the hams, which were then wrapped in a muslin cloth and hung in the cage.
The cage itself is there to protect it from some of Bailiffscourts more troublesome residents– the birds, squirrels and peacocks!
If the experiment is a success, then after consultation with the environmental health authority we would like to produce hams for us to use on our menus.


Update:   April 2011
After twelve months drying in the trees we removed them and had a look.
The results were mixed but you learn from your mistakes– on one of the hams the cure hadn’t made it all the way through to the bone, as a consequence there had been some insect ingress and the  result was some maggots and putrification!
However a couple of the hams were in better order, they had both cured and dried reasonably well. After trimming them we sliced and tasted the hams. The flavour was good but not exceptional.
Talking to producers of both Parma and Pata Negra hams one of the key elements of the curing process is a constant temperature. In Parma they use cool cellars, in Spain the hams are buried in the ground, so trying to achieve the same results outside in the trees is always going to be a challenge.
The current hams in the trees are our third attempt, fingers crossed


For further information please contact Carly Beresford at Historic Sussex Hotels:
07876 354181 c.beresford@hshotels.co.uk  www.hshotels.co.uk