Ham loaf, a Pennsylvania classic, is good leftover dish
It started out with a simple post on my Facebook page in January, where I noted that I had made a ham loaf with Christmas leftovers.
In the comments section, two friends asked: “What is ham loaf?” I was surprised. My first thought was that they must not get to Pennsylvania much (although I know one of them does). My mother is from Pennsylvania, not far from Altoona, and whenever we return to visit, it seems ham loaf is everywhere. They sell it at grocery stores, butcher shops, mini marts; I think you can even buy it at some gas stations. Some places slice it so thin that it’s there next to the turkey and salami on sandwich trays at funerals and graduation parties.
Last month my husband and I were out to dinner with friends, seated at a communal table, when the two couples next to us started chatting about the ham loaf the other couple had made.
Like my Facebook friends, one couple went on about how they had never heard of ham loaf. I couldn’t help myself and chimed in, “Well, then you must not be from Pennsylvania.”
The man who had made the loaf laughed and re-
vealed that he was indeed originally from Sharon, Pa., where his father had made it for many years in a market. We chuckled over the Pennsylvania ham loaf connection, and agreed that a leftover ham loaf sandwich kicked the pants off a leftover meatloaf sandwich.
Then I learned that my own dinner companions also had never heard of ham loaf.
“You make it with leftover ham,” I explained.
“Who has leftover ham?” my friend asked.
“Who doesn’t?” I replied. (In her defense, her family eats lamb for Easter.)
So I promised the entire group I would write a story at Easter time, telling folks how to make this Pennsylvania staple to use up their leftovers.
Made of ground ham and ground pork, topped with a sweet glaze of brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and dry mustard, it just isn’t as common as the traditional meatloaf.
The Pennsylvania Dutch may have the rightful claim to ham loaf. Visit Lancaster County, Pa., and the savory loaf is everywhere, along with its sibling, the ham ball.
But the southeast corner of the Keystone commonwealth doesn’t have a lock on ham loaf.
In Franklin, Pa., just 50 miles or so from the Ohio border, resides a bona fide ham loaf enterprise, Gahr’s Ham Loaf Co. (gahrshamloaf.com ). Owner Mike Gahr is on a mission to bring ham loaf to the masses.
Currently, Gahr is one of just two ham loaf makers in the country who are USDA licensed and inspected to sell it across state lines.
“We can ship nationwide,” Gahr noted.
He has customers in nearly every state and sells about 1,000 pounds each week.
But getting beyond his state border is challenging. He was selling to stores in the Youngstown area for a while, but ham loaf never really took off there. As one who grew up in the shadow of Youngstown, I can see how it would have an uphill battle against the local pizza, cavatelli and hot sausage enterprises.
But Garh confided that ham loaf has a serious image problem outside of Pennsylvania: “Most people think ham loaf is Spam.”
Another marketing hurdle has been the amount of bad ham loaf out there. Once folks try the bad stuff, they are reluctant to try a second time. Gahr said a lot of butcher shops make it out of old ham, and they are ruining the market.
The Gahr family has been making ham loaf for close to 40 years. Gahr’s parents, Leo and Mary, purchased a meat market in Oil City, Pa., in the 1970s and inherited a ham loaf recipe with the store. Mary Gahr found the original recipe hidden in the rafters of the store, on the tattered pages of a 1930s Domino Sugar cookbook.
Makes six to eight servings.
The Gahrs tweaked the recipe over time, and before long found that ham loaf was the most successful portion of their meat business. Sales buoyed when Gahr’s father began offering it for funeral luncheons, where visitors to Oil City got their first taste. By the time the Gahrs sold the shop in 1988, ham loaf had grown to 80 percent of their business. Which is why son Mike decided there was an untapped market and opened his company in 1999.
“We’re an i ndustry leader,” he said. “It’s a very unique item.”
Gahr’s website offers plenty of information on ham loaf, and tackles the controversial issue of the traditional glaze. Gahr said the glaze was often used to disguise the fact that the loaf was made with old meat. As someone who has made and eaten her fair share of ham loaf over the years, this is where I have to disagree.
It is the glaze that makes the ham loaf.
It is the glaze, sticky and sweet like barbecue sauce, that you will be scraping off the bottom of the pan and fighting over with those gathered around your dinner table. I would strongly advise that no one skip it.
I’m sure there are plenty of folks who will read this and call to share their yellowed recipes for ham loaf, and no doubt many of them will also have Pennsylvania roots. But in our current boneless-skinlesschicken breast world, such old-fashioned dishes do seem to have fallen by the wayside.
The classic 1953 edition of the “Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book” has a ham loaf recipe. But by the 1989 edition, it had been reduced to a footnote under the recipe for beef meatloaf.
In the 12th and 15th editions of the cookbook, released in 2002 and 2010, respectively, there is nary a mention of ham loaf, although a recipe for ham balls with barbecue sauce remains.
So perhaps with the help of folks like Gahr and Leach, there is hope for the ham loaf nationally.
HOW TO MAKE A LOAF
Now, down to the business of making one.
A ham loaf requires ground ham, and meat grinders aren’t the most popular kitchen appliance. The meat grinder attachment to a stand mixer is a worthwhile investment, but in a pinch, a food processor will do. Just remember, a food processor will be chopping the meat instead of grinding it, so the loaf may have a coarser texture than one made with ground ham.
Some butcher shops stock ground ham, and others will grind some for you on request, which means it is possible to make a ham loaf outside the leftover boundaries of a major ham-eating holiday.
If you go searching for a recipe, you’re likely to find fairly simple ones that call for equal parts of ground ham and ground pork, with some eggs, bread or cracker crumbs and milk. These are fine, but for my taste, they lack a certain oomph, relying completely on the glaze for taste. The recipe I have developed calls for a bit more spice in the mix, as well as some quick-cooking oats, which hold moisture better than bread crumbs.
Because leftover ham is typically on the dry side, ham loaf often isn’t as moist as a good meatloaf, so the oats and the ground pork go a long way in adding moisture.
I prefer a ratio of more ham to pork, but if you don’t have a lot of leftover ham, using equal parts of ham and pork still will produce a fine loaf.
The rest is as simple as putting together a meatloaf. So give my recipe a try, and don’t be surprised if your friends start to wonder if you were originally from Pennsylvania.