Best ham for Thanksgiving?

I'm not much for turkey. It's been awhile since I've had ham. What's my best bet?

I think somebody mentioned some place in Connecticut. Does anybody remember.

[peekpoke]

I did not like the Rosengarten ham, at all. For us, it had an odd baked bean tasting spice rub, the meat had an off putting soft wet texture, the cure was overly sweet not salty, and ALL the fat had been trimmed off (the horror! Roast ham with no delicious fat!). The seasoning and overly sweet taste made it useless for leftovers. We ended up throwing it all away. Rosengarten's customer service was very nice about hearing our concerns, and refunded all our money.

For Christmas 2006 we had a Burger's Smokehouse Country ham (smoked, not aged), precooked. Although labeled as a country ham, when you purchase it precooked from Burger's, they somehow infuse enough moisture in the cooking process so that it's just as moist as a quality city ham (wet cure). We really enjoyed it as something different, fantastic for leftovers. It's so good we've ordered one for Easter 2007.

When I have a taste for that city ham taste, Trader Joe's and other stores now sell Niman Ranch thick ham steaks that are the best city ham I've found locally. Delicious.

Here is a link to the best ham I've ever had. Nothing else has come close. From the heart of pork country.

Link: http://www.lambert-ewers.com/

If you can get to NYC, there's only one choice:

Kurowycky Meat Products
124 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10009
[phone]

Their hams are the very best quality, not to mention by far the best price. (For what it's worth, Martha Stewart loves them.) http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1998/169826.shtml

Unfortunately, they don't do mail order.

Link: http://sausagenyc.com/products.html

I'm pretty frugal, so I'll go with Costco ham. It's not half bad at all.

Ordered a Kurobuta ham from Rosengarten (link below) last year for Easter, and it was, hands down, the best ham I've ever tasted. Absolutely phenomenal! Really, better than any other ham I've tasted by an order of magnitude.

I've heard rumors that Rosengarten's hams came from here: http://www.snakeriverfarms.com/products/kurobuta-ham.asp. If that is true, then you could get one from UptownPrime.com for about half of what Rosengarten charges.

Link: http://rosengartenreport.com/ham/inde...

These hams sound delicious but I don't see that ordering from UptownPrime.com saves any money.

I checked both links and these are the prices I found:

Rosengarten's prices are:
half-ham (7-9 lbs) $99 = $10 shipping
whole-ham $149 + $20 shipping

UptownPrime: 3-4 lbs = $65

Is there something I'm not understanding?

No, you are correct. I just looked quickly at the uptownprime.com price, and didn't notice that it's a much smaller ham. (Also boneless, which I've never liked.) I guess Rosengarten it is.

Is it really that good? I want to supplement my turkey with a ham. In the past, I've used a Honey Baked Ham, a Smithfield Ham (both spiral sliced), a ham from Karl Ehmer - all good but not the way I remember a good old-fashioned ham should taste.

I'll order one from Rosengarten if they're really, really special :)

Everybody has different tastes, and yours may be very different from mine. That said, the Rosengarten ham I got last Easter was the best I've ever tasted. Really moist and juicy, deeply flavorful, rich and succulent. (And, in addition to Easter dinner itself, the ham and eggs we had for a week or two afterwards were insanely good.)

I can't be the only person on this board, however, to have tried one of these hams. Maybe some others could weigh in?

I had one and it was excellent. I'm not so sure they're still available even though the link seems to work.

Also, it was Snake River Farms. Another name for kurobata is Berkshire ham, some other possible sources:

Heritage Farms:
http://heritagefoodsusa.com/what_we_sell/meat.html

Preferred Meats:
http://preferredmeats.com/

Lobels:
http://www.lobels.com/index.asp

D'Artagnan:
https://www.dartagnan.com/organicgp.asp?search=category&criteria=Pork%20and%20Ham

Berkshire Meats:
http://www.berkshiremeats.com/

Snake River Farms:
http://www.snakeriverfarms.com/srf/default.asp

some others but might not have kurobata:

Niman Ranch:
http://www.nimanranch.com/

Krehbiels:
http://www.healthymeats.net/

Eberly Poultry:
http://www.eberlypoultry.com/index.htm

Uptown Prime:
http://home.proflowers.com/uptownprim...

Harrington's in Shelburne, VT does an excellent corn cob smoked ham. Order some of their bacon while you are at it.

another thumbs up for Harringtons. Been a few years since i had one they are tasty.

Harrigton's smoked turkey and their cheese is great as well.

I also vote for Harrington's from Vermont. Delicious.