HAM, in Commerce, &c. is used for a leg or thigh of pork, dried, seasoned, and prepared, to make it keep, and to give it a brisk agreeable flavour.
Westphalia hams, which are so highly esteemed, are prepared by salting them with salt-petre, pressing them in a press eight or ten days, then sleeping them in juniper-water, and drying them in the smoke of juniper-wood.
A ham may be salted in imitation of those of Westphalia, by sprinkling a ham of young pork with salt for one day, in order to fetch out the blood; then wiping it dry, and rubbing it with a mixture of a pound of brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of salt-petre, half a pint of bay salt, and three pints of common salt, well stirred together in an iron pan over the fire till they are moderately hot: let it lie three weeks in this salting, and be frequently turned, and then dry it in a chimney.