Mainz ham

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Mainz ham

Mainz ham was a nationally widespread term for smoked ham from Mainz from the late Middle Ages up to the Second World War , which also included other German regions of origin. For the period from the 16th to the early 20th century, the relatively durable butcher's product has been passed down as a successful export product, especially to France. The product lost its market due to the First World War and the invention of cooling technology, before production in Mainz ended due to the destruction in the Second World War and the traditional brand name was initially discontinued. Since 2007, based on rediscovered recipes, a single butcher's shop in Mainz has been producing and selling ham with the name Jambon de Mayence .

designation

Until the First World War , Mainz exported ham under the French name Jambon de Mayence as a delicacy in the market halls of Paris . However, it can be assumed that the name Mainzer - similar to the Bayonn ham - only served as a designation of origin for ham in the region around Mainz, i.e. Rheinhessen or the right-bank parts of the Kurstaats - Rheingau - with the central logistics for marketing in each case the main town was organized.

At times, Mainz ham became so popular that it was used as a generic name ( jambon de Mayence ) for all German ham varieties in France.

Manufacture and properties

Very little information is available on the specific recipe and preparation of Mainz ham and its special properties compared to other smoked hams . The recipe was still considered lost in 2005 among Mainz butchers interested in reviving the formerly successful brand.

According to the Oeconomic Encyclopedia by Johann Georg Krünitz , Mainz was a special center for ham production, but the recipe was widely used in southern Germany. The hams were first rubbed or salted with saltpeter ( sodium or potassium nitrate ) and then pressed. After a week Curing time they were in alcohol with crushed or crushed juniper berries set, and then in juniper smoke smoked . "This preparation not only gives the meat a very nice redness inside, but also an excellent taste, it also becomes almost or almost as hard as wood." In the English edition of Larousse gastronomique , it said about the preparation: "Mainz ham is made cured, watered, then placed in brandy or wine yeast and smoked for a long time. ”The famous cookbook Le Cuisinier François (The French cook, first published in 1651) by François-Pierre de La Varenne contained instructions for preparing Mainz ham, after which it was salted and seasoned , soaked in wine yeast, buried in the cellar and finally smoked over juniper in the fireplace. From the predominant preparation of smoked ham in northern Germany (especially Westphalian ham), the Mainz regional variant differed in particular in the seasoning with wine and juniper berries.

Historical mentions

Feeding the Gargantua (lithograph by Daumier )

In 1534 François Rabelais put this specialty on a qualitative level with Bayonn ham in his humorous novel cycle of several volumes about the two giants Gargantua and Pantagruel . Further mentions of the name Mainz ham in French literature can be found in Satire III: Le repas ridicule (1665) by Nicolas Boileau and in the title of a story by Erckmann-Chatrian : La Taverne du jambon de Mayence (1863).

When the American political theorist and later President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, visited Mainz in 1788 while he was a diplomat stationed in Paris, he explicitly praised this Mainz specialty. Charles Dickens let the main character of his story Goodman Misery (1868) threaten a thief stuck in his pear tree that he would “smoke and dry it out like a Mainz ham”.

«À côté des revenus du prince-électeur, ne nous laissez pas oublier les jambons de Mayence, car nous sommes à la source. »

"In addition to the elector's possessions, let's not forget the Mainz ham, because we are at the source"

- Les Sansculottes during the capture of Mainz in 1792

“The preparation of ham, cervelat sausages, etc. Like. to Mainz ... deserves, because it goes on a large scale and forms a significant export article, not to go unmentioned. "

- Patriotic reports for the Grand Duchy of Hesse and the other states of the German Trade Association, published in 1835

In France, the Jambon de Mayence is still sung about as a children's song or marching song, comparable to the German song A sandwich with ham .

“Un jambon de Mayen-ce, V'là qu'ça commen-ce déjà bien! Nous allons fair-re boban-ce, A ce festin il ne manquera rien car j'aperçois… Deux jambons de Mayence etc.… »

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ham. In: Meyers Konversationslexikon. Fourth edition, 1885-1892.
  2. ^ Jean de La Tynna: Almanach du commerce de Paris, des départements de l'Empire français, et de principales villes de monde. Paris, 1809, p. 625.
  3. ↑ a b Search for Mainz ham . in: Frankfurter Rundschau of June 2, 2005, accessed on January 2, 2015
  4. ↑ a b Article ham in the Oeconomic Encyclopedia of Krünitz ( available online )
  5. ^ Katharine M. Rogers: Pork: A Global History. Reaction Books, London 2012, ISBN 978-1-78023-062-7 , p. 48.
  6. ^ Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat: The History of Food. Wiley, Chichester 2009, ISBN 978-1-4443-0514-2 , p. 372.
  7. ↑ Marlene Hübel: "Above it all, the cathedral." Literary city views of Mainz. In: Franz Dumont, Ferdinand Scherf, Friedrich Schütz (Hrsg.): Mainz - The history of the city. 2nd Edition. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 . P. 1177.
  8. ^ Charles Dickens: All the Year Round. Chapman and Hall, London 1868, Volume 20, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Eckhart Kauntz: How a Kringel creates identity: Lyoner from Saarland. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. December 14, 1996, p. 10.