John Jenkinson has been running his small slaughter plant and meat processing operation in Treherne, Man., for 36 years.
And while he’s seen lots of changes among hog farmers, he has also seen a big shift in consumers’ appetites that has radically changed the kind of ham that appears at festive occasions like a prairie potluck.
The big, whole leg ham is gone, replaced by small chopped and mixed shaped hams.
It makes him sad.
“Sometimes it’s the dollar,” said Jenkinson about why fewer families buy whole hams weighing up to 20 pounds and instead opt for small, heavily processed products of bigger processing plants.
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“Sometimes it’s just the size.”
And maybe it’s the size of people’s families, which seldom contain more than two or three children. A 20 lb. ham for a small family is a bigger challenge than it would be for a 1950s family with seven children.
Hams are still traditional at banquets, smorgasbords and festive occasions, but in recent years hams have shrunk from the size of a rugby ball to the size of a softball.
Jenkinson still makes the big, old-fashioned hams, producing both bone-in and boneless leg hams but also smaller ones. He finds he still has a market for the traditional product. He sells through stores in Winnipeg and Brandon, through rural co-op stores, and out of his own Treherne operation.
He buys his hogs from local producers and feed companies, slaughters them, cuts them into quarters and then separates the hams, which are the muscles on the back legs.
The hams are “tumbled,” which is a protein extraction process that allows spices and smoke to penetrate the meat. Then they are moved into the smokehouse.
Jenkinson uses only birch wood in his smoker, although many larger processors use a combination of woods and other materials and chemicals in their smokehouses.
“You get that old-fashioned smoke, which is more flavourful,” said Jenkinson.
He was the meat manager at a chain grocery store for 10 years, and then ran his own meat market for the next 36 years – so far.
There has been a lot of change in the slaughter, meat processing and retailing industries in those four and a half decades, but he said he and other good meat producers still follow the same basic approach.
“You do the best job you can to produce the best product that you can,” said Jenkinson. “You hope the end result is that everybody enjoys it.”
