Meat, salt, and patience: The making of Prague ham
Taking a stand for quality meat
According to historical sources, the original recipe was created by butcher and smoker František Zvěřina, who was the first to cure, smoke, and then finish cooking a whole, bone-in pork leg at his butcher shop on Celetná Street in 1857. In honour of his city, he named it Prague ham. The distinctive flavour delighted customers and other producers in Prague, as well as in other major cities of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they soon began to imitate the process.
It was the butcher Antonín Chmel who paved the way for Prague ham to capture the attention of the world. He not only knew how to make it well, but also how to market it brilliantly. Originally, he had only a small shop in Prague's Old Town, but in 1889 he purchased the former Zvonařka farmstead in Vinohrady along with the surrounding plots of land, and built a smokehouse there. He started with a single butcher, and a few years later, over forty workers were employed there. At the time, this would have been considered a large company, and any worker who apprenticed under Chmel and remained with him for several years was respected as an expert throughout the monarchy.
Flaws add to the charm
The glory of Chmel’s business was cut short by World War II, and production, albeit of questionable quality, was taken over by large meat-processing plants. It wasn’t until after 1989 that the Prague Ham gradually began to have a renaissance. The butchers at Amaso soon began producing it as well, and nowadays the Naše maso butcher shop in Prague offers the very same product.
“Meat, salt, and time. That’s all we put into it. We salt the entire ham and inject the brine — which we make from water and Praganda salt — into the meat through several punctures. Then we submerge the entire pork leg in the brine and let it cure for three to four weeks. Throughout that waiting period, we turn the leg and replace the brine as needed. We then rinse the salted ham with warm water. Only then does the smoking process begin, followed by cooking. This takes at least six hours, depending on the size,” explains František Kšána in detail.
A such, Prague ham owes its distinctive flavour solely to the salting process and the use of Praganda. This process creates microorganisms that are responsible for the authentic ham flavour.
A slice of Prague ham isn’t perfectly solid and cohesive like the kind you find at the supermarket, nor does it have a distinctly red colour. When sliced, individual muscles marbled with fat are clearly visible. “Just a few years ago, this was considered a flaw; modern customers weren’t used to it. Today, on the contrary, I seek out ham like this — it’s a sign of handcrafted work,” says František Kšána.
At the Naše maso butcher shop, he sells ham just as butchers in Prague used to make during the First Republic. Back then, hams were larger, but Naše maso’s goal is to smoke exactly the kind of ham that butcher Zvěřina used to make — smaller and with an even more delicate flavour.
