As we head into this Easter weekend, it’s only appropriate to finish up with a little ham-related news. (Monday is a holiday in Hungary, unlike in some other parts of the world, while ham, not lamb, is the hús traditionally served on húsvét.) Unfortunately, the ham news, as usual, isn’t very good. According to various news reports making the rounds over the past few days, local ham producers are freaked because of the allegedly declining demand for “quality” hams, in favor of lower-grade bundles of what is derisively referred to as “Easter meat.”
Financial portal fn.hu, for example, reports that “every fifth Hungarian family” will eat poor-quality smoked ham this Easter. This is not really news, as the percentage was the same last year. But what is new is that many of these “objects that look like ham” are not cheap imports from places like Slovakia, but some are manufactured by Hungarians.
Despite the leveling off of “non-ham” hams’ market penetration at roughly 20%, it is still a “frightening situation,” according to Attila Berczik, managing secretary of the Association of Hungarian Meat Producers (Magyar Húsiparosok Szövetsége, also known as the Hússzövetség). Berczik says he believes the growing demand for non-ham ham is due to the government’s recently-introduced austerity measures, and Hungary’s high value-added tax on food, which apparently is the stiffest in the EU.
As for the difference between a genuine ham and the dreaded “non-ham” mystery meat, that is still a bit of a mystery to us. But from what we gather, the “non-hams” are usually smoked pork shoulder (rather than thigh or buttocks) and injected with so much water that if you soak it before cooking it again (like Hungarians normally do) it will be close to inedible.
Happily, you can avoid all this by reading this timeless guide to Hungarian ham published by our sister site Pestiside.hu two Easters ago, or by just blowing the whole thing off and ordering a pizza.
