Hammin’ It Up Out West

"All the cookin’ o’ course was done at the fireplace….  Later, when we got pigs, father smoked ham an’ bacon for the winter. First after the hogs was killed, he’d make a heavy salt brine, then he’d rinse the hams an’ sides in that, an’ then he’d build a fire on the ground o’ the smoke house an’ hang the hams an’ sides over it…,” remembered Sarah Byrd, who  had moved with her family from Iowa to Oregon in 1848. Ham, a food staple that’s been around for centuries