A whole cooked country ham with a dark brown sugar crust studded with cloves, a few thin slices cut from it, on a large oval platter. — Whole boiled ham with a brown sugar and clove crust, partly sliced.

Boiled Ham with a Brown Sugar Crust (1931)

Name: Boiled Ham with a Brown Sugar Crust
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 5 h 15 min
Total time: 17 h 45 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 10 lb whole uncooked country ham; Cold water, to cover, for soaking; Boiling water, to cover, for simmering; 1 carrot, sliced; 2 stalks celery; 1 tsp celery salt; 3 sprigs parsley; 1 onion, sliced; 3 bay leaves; ½ cup cider vinegar; ½ cup packed brown sugar; 1 tbsp whole cloves

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Aunt Sammy’s boiled ham with a brown sugar crust, 1931: a cured ham soaked overnight, simmered with vegetables and vinegar, then skinned, sugared, studded with cloves and browned.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 28, 2026

Recipe makes: One 10 lb ham, about 25 servings
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 5 hr 15 min
Total: 17 hr 45 min

Includes an overnight soak of about 12 hours. Simmering takes about 5 hours (25 to 30 minutes a pound) and the crust 15 minutes in a hot oven. For a cold ham, allow another night in the refrigerator.

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Whole boiled ham with a brown sugar and clove crust, partly sliced.

The story behind the recipe

A Virginia ham is a salt-cured country ham, the kind that has to give up some of its salt before it is eaten. Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised, printed by the United States Department of Agriculture in May 1931, deals with exactly that: if the ham is very dry or salty, soak it overnight in cold water, then simmer it for hours with vegetables, herbs and a little vinegar. One heads the typed menu for the Roosevelts’ 1939 picnic, and no record says how the Roosevelt kitchen cooked it, so this page follows the federal government’s own method, printed eight years before.

Who was Aunt Sammy?

Her recipes came from the radio. The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Home Economics began its “Housekeepers’ Chats” for women in 1926, and listeners wrote in so steadily for the recipes that the bureau collected them. The revised book of 1931, by Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman, gathers 400 of the most popular recipes and 90 menus, and its foreword says it “makes no claim to being a complete cookbook.”

How did Aunt Sammy know the ham was done?

She used a thermometer. In place of a cook’s guess, Aunt Sammy suggests “a roast meat thermometer” pushed through a small cut in the rind into the thickest part, left there through the cooking, with the ham done at 170°F (77°C). Her fallback, for a kitchen without one, is about 25 to 30 minutes a pound.

Making it today

Look for a whole uncooked country ham, the salt-cured kind; a ready-to-eat city ham doesn’t need this treatment. Soaking in the refrigerator, or in a cooler kept cold with ice, is our choice for an overnight soak today. Aunt Sammy’s 170°F (77°C) stays, well above the 145°F (63°C) safe minimum for a ham that has to be cooked before eating.

She offers two finishes, plain boiled ham cooled in its broth or the browned crust. We take the crust and slice the ham cold for a picnic, with Cranberry Jelly (1931) from the same book beside it.

Select a 10 or 12 pound ham, scrub it thoroughly, and if very dry or salty, soak the ham overnight in cold water to cover. ...

Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker YeatmanAunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised (Washington: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, May 1931), Boiled Ham, p. 17

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Ingredients

For One 10 lb ham, about 25 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 10 lb ham, about 25 servings.

Whole uncooked country ham10 lb
Cold water, to cover, for soaking
Boiling water, to cover, for simmering
Carrot, sliced1
Celery2 stalks
Celery salt1 tsp
Parsley3 sprigs
Onion, sliced1
Bay leaves3
Cider vinegar1/2 cup
Packed brown sugar1/2 cup
Whole cloves1 tbsp

Ingredients as written here

10 lb whole uncooked country ham
Cold water, to cover, for soaking
Boiling water, to cover, for simmering
1 carrot, sliced
2 stalks celery
1 tsp celery salt
3 sprigs parsley
1 onion, sliced
3 bay leaves
½ cup cider vinegar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp whole cloves

Equipment

Container or clean cooler large enough to hold the ham under water
Stiff vegetable brush
Stockpot or ham boiler of at least 16 quarts, with a rack or trivet
Ovenproof meat thermometer, or an instant-read thermometer
Roasting pan
Sharp knife

Instructions

Scrub the country ham all over under running water with the stiff brush, scraping off any mold on the surface. Put it in the container and pour in enough cold water for soaking to cover it. Leave it in the refrigerator, or in a cooler packed with ice that stays at 40°F (4°C) or below, for about 12 hours.
Drain the ham and set it on the rack in the stockpot. Pour in enough boiling water for simmering to cover it, and add the carrot, celery, celery salt, parsley, onion, bay leaves and cider vinegar.
Make a small cut in the rind over the thickest part of the ham and push the thermometer through it into the center of the meat, clear of the bone.
Bring the water back to a simmer, cover the pot partly with its lid and keep it at a gentle simmer, with no more than a few bubbles breaking the surface, for about 5 hours. Top it up with boiling water as needed to keep the ham covered. The ham is done when the thermometer reads 170°F (77°C).
Heat the oven to 450°F (230°C). Lift the ham out onto a board and, while it is still hot, cut away the skin, leaving the layer of fat underneath.
Set the ham fat side up in the roasting pan. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the fat, press it on lightly and stud the surface with the cloves. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until the sugar has melted and browned, and take it out before it scorches.
Serve the ham hot, or let it cool for no more than 2 hours, then wrap it and refrigerate it overnight. Carve it in thin slices across the grain.

Nutrition

180calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 10 lb ham, about 25 servings
Servings: 25

Estimated per 3 oz serving (25) of lean and fat from USDA FoodData Central values for cured country ham, with the brown sugar crust; most of the salt stays in the soaking water and broth, which are not counted.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Aunt Sammy’s ham weighed 10 to 12 pounds. A half ham of 5 to 6 pounds takes half the vegetables and about 25 minutes a pound; check it with the thermometer.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Aunt Sammy leaves the brown sugar and cloves unmeasured; our amounts suit a 10 lb ham. She calls for “2 or 3” bay leaves and “one-half cup vinegar”; we use 3 bay leaves and cider vinegar. The carrot, celery, celery salt, parsley, onion, bay and vinegar are optional in her recipe (“If desired”); we use them all. Soaking in a refrigerator or iced cooler is our change. Cooked ham keeps 3 to 5 days in the refrigerator; reheat leftovers to 165°F (74°C). A country ham is very salty even after soaking, so taste a slice before adding salt to anything served with it.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.