Country Ham Steaks

Country ham is not city ham. If you've only eaten the pink, wet, honey-glazed stuff from the supermarket, you've been missing one of America's great culinary traditions. True country ham is dry-cured for months, sometimes over a year, developing an intensity that approaches prosciutto. It's salty, funky, and absolutely magnificent when treated with respect.

The technique couldn't be simpler. You fry slices in butter until the edges caramelize and the fat renders crisp. The whole process takes ten minutes. What you serve alongside it is where personal history enters the picture. My people always wanted fried eggs cooked in the ham drippings, biscuits for sopping, and grits to catch the red-eye gravy.

Red-eye gravy mystifies outsiders. It's nothing more than coffee deglazed in the ham drippings, maybe a touch of sugar to balance the salt. The name comes from the eye of fat that floats on top, or perhaps from the fact that you need it after a night that left you red-eyed. Either explanation works. What matters is that the thin, dark gravy brings everything on the plate together.

This is breakfast at an unhurried pace. The kind of morning where coffee cups get refilled twice, where someone is always at the stove frying another egg, and the only schedule that matters is how long until everyone has eaten their fill.