Last week at the deli I finally took the time to actually read the little tags in front of the rows of meats waiting to be sliced to your favorite thickness, or thinness, to your preferred weight. Actually to the weight you want the meat. Probably if you were looking to get to your preferred weight you wouldn’t be at the deli.

Anyway, I was reading the tags and I kept noticing a theme with the ham selections. They were all “off the bone.” I didn’t understand. Isn’t ham supposed to be off the bone? If I wanted ham on the bone I’d go buy the big chunk of pig leg and bake my own ham to ultimately slice as thick, or as thin, as I’d like. I know on those occasions I have done just that, step number one to slicing ham however thick, or thin, you like it is cut the ham off the bone.

Ham has always had something of an image problem. Years ago there were basically two kinds of ham you could get. Cooked or not cooked. You had to cook both but the not cooked took more steps and more hours than the cooked to cook. Then someone decided that was too confusing so they started calling them city hams and country hams. It only took a few times to the store to figure out which was the cooked ham that didn’t require as much cooking as the not cooked ham. That’s the one I wanted. Maybe because I was from the city. Or maybe it was because I liked the idea of someone starting the cooking for me. I don’t know. But I figured out which was which and which to take home and cook. Or finish cooking.

And then those same theys (I think it was the same theys but it could have been a new group of theys) started fooling around with the pig anatomy and came up with a semi boneless ham. I never knew which part of the bone, or the leg, was halved but the ones I got always still had a bone in them. But that was a good thing because how are you going to make the bean soup when you’re all done slicing the ham off the bone as thick, or as thin, as you want it if you don’t have the bone to start the soup with. I have read several recipes for bean soup and they all start with “put a ham bone in a big pot.” Not “put half a ham bone in a big pot.”

Now the latest thing they (the original theys, the second wave of theys if there was even was a second wave, or a whole new they group) came up with is the spiral sliced ham. Oh sure, you can say that’s not new, those have been around a long time. But in the past to get a spiral sliced ham you had to go to a special store and they were all the way cooked and they cost about as much as filet mignon instead of your basic pig leg. But now you can walk into any grocery store and pick up a spiral sliced ham as long as you want the cooked version and don’t mind relinquishing the how thick, or how thin, the slicing to an anonymous spiraler.

But to get back to the short story, no matter what kind, how cooked, in the city or out in the country, with or without half a bone, or presumed pre-sliced spirally speaking, you have to get the ham off the bone. So what’s the big deal with this “off the bone” label?

And don’t even get me started on the salami!