Escapes
Ham-burg, Virginia
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Wednesday, May 29, 2002
"What's that smell?" asked my 7-year-old son, David, as we approached the town of Smithfield, Va., world-renowned for its hams. I had opened the windows to see if what I'd heard was true.
"It smells like sausage pizza," said David.
I inhaled deeply. The scent was unmistakably porcine, though slightly acrid. Were those patented porkers smoking even on a Saturday afternoon?
Smithfield -- home of the Fortune 500 Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog producer and pork processor -- is a consummate company town. The town water tower has a large ham emblazoned across it. As you drive in, a sign directs the hog trucks to the packing plant rather than through the heart of this historic hamlet of 6,000 or so. The town is not named for John Smith of Pocahontas fame, although he was active in these parts, but for one Arthur Smith IV, who donated land for a town on the Pagan River back in 1752.
The town will be celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, complete with a parade and a giant ham biscuit eight feet across. USA Today recently selected the Smithfield Inn's ham biscuit as the "Number One Plate in Virginia." These people are serious about their biscuits.
Jamestown, Yorktown and Williamsburg (across the James River) might have their archaeological digs, re-creations and re-enactments, but this is the real old Virginia. Isn't it?
Observing the swell of cash-in-hand visitors crowding into those other towns and Virginia Beach, the people of Smithfield must have yearned for a piece of the tourist pie.
"That's all there is anymore downtown," said a docent at the Isle of Wight (County)Museum a bit wistfully. Tourist stuff. Strolling down the tidy Main Street, one passes the requisite Christmas-all-year-long store and shop after shoppe of antiques, shabby-chic accessory vendors and ham specialty stores. The pig motif is omnipresent. You'll find iron piggy banks, hand towels with pigs, piggy ice cream scoopers, pig-shaped soap, etc.
Although its gift shop caters to the town motif, the Isle of Wight Museum showcases historic Smithfield. A life-size cutout of P.D. Gwaltney, one of the most famous purveyors of pork, greets you as you walk into the main space. His "pet ham" is encased in glass nearby. Originally cured in 1902, this wily ham somehow escaped shipping and turned up several years later. A man unafraid of a gimmick, Gwaltney decided to keep it and see how long it would last. The pet ham became Gwaltney's mascot and was featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" as the world's oldest ham. Gwaltney even insured it for $5,000. Now, brown and petrified, it's celebrating its 100th birthday as a ham this year. Hmmm.
Smithfield hams keep indefinitely without refrigeration. They are dry-cured, salted, smoked and aged from nine to 12 months. Genuine Smithfield meats -- declared so by the Virginia legislature in 1926 -- are hogs raised in Virginia or North Carolina and cured within the town limits of Smithfield. Originally, they were free-range porkers who dined on the abundant supply of peanuts in these parts. Hams have been shipped worldwide from Smithfield since Colonial times.
One old newspaper article in the museum refers to Smithfield hams as "the aristocrat of the Virginia table" and gives well-heeded directions on its consumption: "The thoughtful host will slice Smithfield ham so thinly that he can see the knife through the ham. If he does so, the taste buds of his guest will not be overpowered; they will be delicately aroused."
I think back to that holiday ham my Virginia mother-in-law graciously sent my Ohio mother years ago. My mother soaked that ham for a day, tasted it, then soaked it again. Finally, she pronounced it inedible and threw it away. It's very salty stuff, as even the waitress at the Smithfield Inn will tell you.
Elsewhere in the museum you'll find the ubiquitous arrowheads, glass beads and pottery fragments. What you'll also find out is that this town has a sense of humor about itself. Swine versions of famous paintings hang above Gwaltney's head. There are dancing pigs รก la Keith Haring, a squealing pig in the style of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and a Tiffany pig. Elsewhere in the museum I found Mona Lisa with a pig's face and a pig skipping across Monet's water lily bridge.
Unlike most of the surrounding Tidewater towns, Smithfield managed to avoid destruction in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Civil War, though there was a skirmish that sank a Yankee boat. Locals might tell you with a wink that the generals didn't want to threaten their supply of ham. Most of the older, 18th-century homes are spread out along the Pagan River, and later houses fill in the spaces. Follow the self-guided walking tour -- the brochure's available at the visitors center in the 1750 Old Courthouse -- and you'll find a slew of gingerbread Victorians, Colonials, Federals and Georgian styles dating from 1730.
But this is Hamtown. The processing plants are not tucked away discreetly in the countryside. While you may relish the sunset over the river as you nibble your ham delicacy at Smithfield Station's outdoor restaurant, the processing plant is the backdrop. It can be clearly seen and smelled from most vantage points in town.
Still, if it weren't for the ham industry, Smithfield would probably be a place where you merely slow to 25 mph for a minute.
"He's done a lot for Smithfield," the docent told us of Joseph Luter III, the CEO of Smithfield Foods, who is also known as "boss hog." Once a regional company, Smithfield Foods is now multinational with revenues in excess of $6 billion. Okay, so there's that little matter of the $12.6 million that Smithfield Foods was fined for violating the Clean Water Act by polluting the Pagan River, but that's all offal under the bridge. The processing plant now feeds directly into a wastewater treatment plant, and the company proudly proclaims its environmental achievements in a glossy brochure and online, complete with bird calls. They're even working on a project with North Carolina State University that would "harvest the energy value of hog manure to create green electricity."
A Smithfield native, Luter seems commited to an Americana version of his home town. A stately and impressive new Smithfield Foods headquarters overlooks the grassy islands of the river. The company also helped fund a Main Street beautification project that added lifelike metal sculptures around town. In front of the local newspaper office, Ben Franklin contemplates the Constitution, while Thomas Jefferson proofreads the Declaration of Independence outside the Smithfield Center and Robert Frost puts the finishing touches on "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" at the entrance of the new theater, both partly funded by the company.
As the founders and poets ponder, real-life fishermen pull out croakers along the river, and the marina fills with boats and diners. All in all, it's a pleasant place. If you like ham.
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