Baleigh Raef of Laclede County is a 10-year-old fourth grader in Lebanon, Mo. Like her contemporaries, she is involved in a variety of activities, but some of them are a bit unique including playing the mandolin, deer and turkey hunting and showing Duroc pigs at the county fair. Baleigh’s latest interest for the last couple of years has been the curing and showing of champion hams at the county, regional and state fair levels.
“My dad got me started,” Baleigh explained at her home as she, her father, Glenn Raef, and family friend, Jim Thompson prepared to start the curing process on a new batch of hams.
One of Baleigh’s hams won the 2008 Gala Show at the Ozark Empire Fair and took sixth place at the state fair. Her Gala Show ham was sold afterwards for $525. The top winning ham at the Missouri State Fair sold for over $5,500 this year, according to Glenn Raef.
Jim Thompson explained the process of the salting and curing. “The purpose of the salt is to draw out the moisture, and afterwards, of course, they’re hung in the smokehouse.
“The hams need a minimum of two and a half days in the smokehouse for every pound, but they can hang in there forever. Burgers’ Smokehouse has a ham hanging up that’s been there since the 1950’s. The process is similar to what the Egyptians used and we’ve seen how long the mummies have lasted.”
“Here,” Jim Thompson reached out to help Baleigh balance a large 18 lb. ham for just a moment. “The salt on the hide does not penetrate very well, so we want to get more of it on the end here. The tighter the ham is wrapped, the better. What we’re really doing is shaping the ham.”
Glenn Raef added, “You always want to hang a ham, the way a hog walks, with the shank down. However it hangs is how it is going to be shaped. We do our own bacon, too. It only takes four or five days to smoke bacon.
“We hang our hams in Mike Sanwald’s smokehouse up the road. It’s a big concrete smokehouse, rodent-proof. When I was a kid, we’d kill two or three hogs and take them all to the Sanwalds to smoke.
Glenn Raef continued, “We started doing this four or five years ago, primarily as an addition for the shows at the county fair. We’re really proud of Baleigh’s accomplishments in this area. Some of the kids she competes against, their folks are butchers or meat processors. They do this for a living, so it’s great that she’s done so well.”
Hams are judged on appearance and aroma and a small sample that is cut from the interior of the ham. According to Jim Thompson, a University of Missouri Extension ag-business specialist, hams to be shown at the state fair level cannot exceed 22 pounds.
Glenn Raef concluded, “We’d just like to encourage more kids to get involved in showing hams at the fair level. These will hang until the fair, and then we’ll take them down, wash them off, and put about six hours of cold smoke on them, except for the ones we eat, of course.”
Baleigh’s hams will feed her family, Glenn and Jennifer Raef as well as her younger brother, Brody, age 6, who also shows pigs at the county fair.
Baleigh Raef shared that her future plans include College of the Ozarks. “I want to be an anesthesiologist, so after College of the Ozarks, I’m going to Mizzou to become a doctor.”
Meanwhile, Baleigh had just finished her part in the salting, socking and hanging, when a friend, Shannon Jenkins, arrived. “Come see the deer I shot!” she exclaimed, her eyes shining with excitement. And just that quickly, the hams are done and the two girls have scrambled out the door to take a look at the new prize in the back of Shannon's dad’s pickup truck.
