Smithfields vie for ham supremacy

Everyone knows Smithfield country hams come from Smithfield…but would that be North Carolina or Virginia? Each Smithfield has laid claim to being the “ham capital of the world.” 

In 1985, the country ham processors in Smithfield and Johnston County, N.C., decided it would be fun to host a competition, and let a panel of judges decide which state’s country ham tasted better. 

Freelance journalist Emily Wallace of Durham (a Smithfield, N.C., native) gave her readers a taste of how it went. She wrote and illustrated “Ham to Ham Combat: The Tale of Two Smithfields” in 2015. 

The contest provided great theater and cooked up a whale of publicity for the country ham processing and packing industry. 

The country ham plants in Johnston County decided to call their event the Ham & Yam Festival and extended an invitation to Virginia’s Smithfielders.

 About 8,500 residents live in Smithfield, Va., which is located in the highly populated Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia and situated on the Pagan River, a tributary of the James River. 

Smithfield, N.C., the county seat of Johnston County, has about 13,000 inhabitants, but is largely rural in character. 

The Smithfields are separated by about 162 miles…and a whole lot of attitude. The bad blood began to boil during early colonial times. 

William Byrd II (1674-1744), considered to be the founder of Richmond, Virginia’s capital city, was a bit of a boorish snob. He viewed North Carolinians as a “porciverous” population whose “only business…was raising and eating hogs.” That was not meant as a compliment. 

The first Ham & Yam competition in 1985 drew the attention and support of Jim “The Sodfather” Graham, who was North Carolina’s longtime agriculture commissioner. Wallace said Graham offered to fork over a passel of Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament tickets to the opponents if the Virginia side won the competition.

The festival’s hospitality committee welcomed the competitors from Virginia, the judges and dignitaries on Ham & Yam eve at Becky’s Log Cabin steakhouse in Smithfield, N.C., so everyone could sample local bourbon and get in the spirit. It was like a pep rally for country ham. 

Wallace said: The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va. reported that on the day of the contest, “the judges – two food scientists and one ham-maker – ‘pondered their decisions prayerfully in the shade behind Smithfield’s Primitive Baptist Church with a pitcher of water.’” 

Ranks were doled out according to fat-to-lean ratio, trim, taste and overall appearance, and Jim Graham announced that North Carolina took three of four categories, “so I consider we won it.” He kept those “basketball tickets safely in his clutch,” Wallace said.

The 1986 rematch offered a total of eight awards, with North Carolina winning five and Virginia three. The Smithfield (N.C.) Herald headline read: “Johnston Hams Send Virginians Home to Lick Salt from Wounds.”

 

“That was the last time Smithfield, Va., officially came to town,” Wallace said. “The festival shifted to a competition among North Carolina curers. By the early 1990s, the festival had dwindled into a sort of craft fair, with less emphasis on pork and potatoes.” 

Smithfield, Va., retained rights to the Smithfield brand, and Smithfield Foods grew to become America’s largest producer and processor of pork. In 2013, Shuanghui International, a Chinese-based company, based in Hong Kong, purchased Smithfield for $4.7 billion. 

In January 2014, Shuanghui International changed its name to WH Group. It is the largest pork company in the world, with Smithfield Foods continuing as its U.S. subsidiary.