The ham becomes preserved through the use of the glaze, so it can last longer.
Otherwise, yeah, sugary meat, blah blah.
Doesn't the salt act as a preservative? I thought it was like Thanksgiving... after Thanksgiving you have turkey sandwiches and turkey salad, after Easter you have ham sandwiches and ham salad.
Both salt and sugar (or honey) can act as preservatives.
My family used to use spiral-cut, honey-glazed hams for Christmas, and we'd pick at the meat for a good while afterwards, just like the Thanksgiving turkey.
I am sure the Hillary family, and the Obamas like spiral cut hams meanwhile Ted Nugent and the Trumps have a real ham.
I'm sure Jesus would approve, maybe even the easter bunny !? But what is the deal with eating hams for easter?
There isn't actually anything specifically relating either the Christian or secular celebrations of Easter to the consumption of ham.
The simple answer is that ham is "in season." Traditionally, hogs were slaughtered in the fall after they ate a bunch of things that were found to make their meat tasty (apples, acorns, etc). Hams were easy to preserve in the winter while they were being prepared, then aged, and in the spring ... there you go, a lovely ham, just in time for Easter.
This seems to be an American thing, though. In other parts of the civilized world, lamb is popular as well.
We do Thanksgiving the italian way too. Yes there's turkey and stuffing and pie and football, but we *always* start with a pasta course, which in our house is homemade manicotti.
Just had to post this here, just about the perfect bacon sandwich:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/whats-the-formula-for-the-perfect-bacon-sandwich/
Nicely done. :) As you're probably aware, in the US we have a much different idea of what bacon is. Our bacon is cut from pork belly and has streaky fat. It's wonderfully crispy but a bit on the greasy side. Up in Canada, though, they use the familiar back bacon (beauty, eh? take off, hosers!).
I might be in the UK later this year and if I go, I will have to try a classic bacon butty with white bread and "brown sauce" :)
My local pizza place has online ordering. I can pre-pay with PayPal and everything. It's awesome. Next to each item and in the delivery instructions there are "comments" boxes. Well you know I've just got to write something humorous in each of those boxes, every single time. They always tell me they love my comments. This time, they responded to the highlighted comments by putting Bacon on my salad:
(That's http://uncensored.citadel.org/readfwd?go=Food?start_reading_at=4277620#4277620 for those of you on the text client)