HIGH-QUALITY HOLIDAY HAM
Irwin farm’s prized heritage pigs yield tender and succulent hams
Joann Fourth grew up on a New Alexandria dairy farm and as a kid showed beef cattle in her local 4-H beef club. Still, her mother warned her against ever marrying a farmer because of the 24/ 7 demands of farm life. She didn’t listen. When she was 14, Joann met Tom Logan at the Westmoreland County Fair. She married him nine years later and ever since has labored alongside him on Logan Family Farms that his family established in 1894 on Eisaman Road in Irwin.
Mr. Logan is the fourth generation to make a living on the 80-acre property that in the 1930s was divided by the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Whereas his forebears sold eggs and bottled milk on the property, Logan Family Farms is more diverse today.
Since he took the reins in the 1970s, Mr. Logan has focused much of his energies on the farm’s stellar natural dry aged beef, which is sold at eight farmers markets and supplied to restaurants
and corporate customers.
The couple and their sons, Ben and Jacob, also plant, manage, harvest and market thousands of pounds of sweet corn, soybeans, wheat, barley and hay on an additional 1,400 rented acres, with help from Ben’s wife, Jenn. Their daughter, Katie, who lives in the Midwest, serves as the farm’s “meat scientist.”
The family has raised pigs on and off for years, too, but it was only in 2016 that the Logans got into Berkshire Black pork in a serious way. It didn’t take them long to have a devoted following.
Berkshire Blacks are a tough and super-intelligent heritage breed that originated three centuries ago in England. Known in Japan as Kurobuta pork, it’s prized for its dark-red, well-marbled meat, which makes it more tender and succulent than traditional pork. Some liken it to the pork version of Kobe or Waygu beef.
Thick and compact with a sweet demeanor and white markings, Berkshire Blacks are a “lard breed” with a high concentration of fatty tissue that’s good for making lard. Despite enjoying a renaissance, they can be hard to procure, and in fact it took Mr. Logan a long while to “find a pure” in Port Royal. Other stock has come from as far away as Ohio, Minnesota and Indiana.
Upward of 30 mama sows inhabit the farm at any one time. Their piglets are raised in a barn within spitting distance of the turnpike on an all-vegan diet of ground corn and soy bean meal, without steroids and growth hormones. On average, the pigs eat up to 6 pounds a feed a day during their lifetime.
That helps explain why it takes just about nine months for a 1-pound piglet to grow to a finishing weight of around 300 pounds. A cow, by comparison, needs three years to reach maturity.
The average litter size is eight to 10 piglets, and each baby starts eating about 15 minutes after birth. If a piglet fails to claim a nipple quickly, Mrs. Logan says, it could be out of luck. The largest, most aggressive piglets get the nipples closest to the mother’s head (which have the most milk) while the runts and weaklings are often left with the less-productive hind nipple.
Hog operations manager Brandon Gallagher is the wizard behind the curtain. One of Ben Logan’s fellow 4Hers, he grew up on a farm with 60 sows and “never got away from it.” That is, despite studying wildlife and fisheries science at Penn State University. All the breeding and farrowing takes place under his careful eye at a farm in New Alexandria. After the pigs reach market weight, they’re processed at one of three USDA facilities in Western Pennsylvania,
Mr. Gallagher also has been experimenting with raising a small number of Berkshire Black/Red Waddle hybrid pigs, so named for the fleshy tassel attached to each side of the neck.
While both breeds can be skittish, they’re also very curious. Their only problem is that they smell, he says with a smile.
“And it hangs on your clothes for days,” Jenn Logan adds.
Ham refers to to the cured leg of pork and not to the whole pig. At the Logan farm, most hams are either sugaror salt- cured or hickory smoked offsite (which makes them technically safe for eating without cooking), a process that can take up to two weeks. But you also can get a “green” ham, which is really more like a roast, says Mr. Logan, the only one among four siblings raised by Bob and Nancy Logan to go into farming.
It’s been a hard act to follow. Nancy milked cows, gathered eggs and helped pick sweet corn until she was in her mid-70s. Even today, in her 80s, she’s still the eyes and ears of the farm.
In a way, the pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for the family because when the grocery stores ran out of meat, hundreds of new customers — some from as far away as Texas, Florida and the Carolinas — sought out the farm. Choices include sausage, bacon, pork chops and roasts along with beef products and hams. Meat lovers also can buy halves and quarters of “freezer beef.” Delivery is free with at least a $50 order within a 50-mile radius.
The Logans have used a renewed interest in locally raised meat as an opportunity to educate home cooks about pork. The reason many are afraid to cook it, or cook it badly, is because “the other white meat” has gotten so lean over the years. So it’s easy to overcook, making it tough and dry.
“But pork should not be pale,” says Ben Logan. The darker red it is — and Berkshire Black pork is quite rosy — the more fat in the meat and the better the flavor.
The Logans like to bake their cured and smoked hams in a 325-degree oven to a minimum internal temperature of 145 degrees, using a plastic turkey bag filled with a can of ginger ale instead of wrapping it in foil (about 2½ hours for a 10pound ham). They always let it rest for a few long minutes to allow the juices redistribute.
“Remember, it just needs to be reheated, not cooked,” Mrs. Logan says.
A quality ham can be pricey, especially in a pandemic year when dinner guests are limited. Logan’s Berkshire Black top-of-theline whole hams are $5 per pound for semi-boneless and $6 per pound for boneless. (The hams also are sold in slices.) If you can’t make it to the farm store, they can be ordered online or locally at Market Street Grocery in Market Square, Eden’s Market in Mt. Lebanon and Sunny Bridge Natural Foods in McMurray.
One of Mrs. Logan’s favorite “dance around the kitchen recipes” is ham balls. She takes a pound each of ground ham and ground pork and mixes them with an egg, 1 cup of graham crackers crumbs and half cup of milk. The balls — portioned with a one-third cup or large cookie scooper — are then tossed in a spicysweet sauce of ketchup, tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and yellow mustard and baked for about an hour.
Finely chopped ham mixed with ground breadand-butter pickles, breadcrumbs and mayo or plain Greek yogurt is another throwback her family adores, especially when served with Ritz crackers.
“You have to understand I’m an old-fashioned cook,” says Mrs. Logan. “I just dump ingredients,” often without a recipe.
I, conversely, like to add chopped leftover ham to a Tuscan-style white bean soup. Start with boxed chicken broth and canned cannellini beans, and then add a handful of chopped kale or escarole into the pot along with garlic, carrot, onion and fresh thyme. To finish, add a garnish of homemade croutons. A hot bowl of soup is a perfect way to warm up on a cold winter day.
Leftover ham also can dress up everything from egg dishes and casseroles to appetizers, stir fries, hashes, breakfast sandwiches and noodles dishes.
It’s the one ingredient where you really can and should go whole hog exploring.