Ham

It may be the wrong time of year but I’m keen to find out firsthand how the process works. The smokehouse is a small wooden shack in the garden of Tamaz’s large house in the suburbs of Ambrolauri. As is usual in rural Georgia, the garden is really an orchard, with various fruit trees and a few rows of tomatoes that are down to their last fruits. He shows us the (black) interior of the shack as he explains how he makes his hams. “After the pig has been slaughtered and cleaned of its organs, we butterfly it and salt the whole animal for ten days on wooden boards in another space. In winter the temperature is naturally low here, so it’s like a huge refrigerator.”