Dried ham – yum!

Back in December I acquired a 20 leg of pork that I salted and hung to dry. Tonight, I took it down and tested the meat. It took a while to cut through the fat on the outside, which had hardened a lot. Eventually, though, I could see some of the red meat inside.

Thinly sliced, it tasted like prosciutto, with a lovely mouth feel from the marbled fat.

Overall, I am very pleased with the results. My dog is deeply jealous, however. The ham has been hidden in the basement for months and he never noticed. He followed my very closely as I took the ham back downstairs out of his reach.

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Merovingian research

I was lucky enough to get a chance to visit the National Archaeological Museum in Paris this weekend, which has a rather fine collection of Merovingian stuff. I have wanted to visit since the early 1990’s, when I first started going to Paris on business and discovered the research about Arnegunde, whose tomb in St Denis had been excavated some years before.  It was worth the wait!

All those brooches are the inspiration for the project I am working on.

Arnegunde’s treasure:

Some of the shoe buckles are missing from this picture, along with the gold thread remnants of the trim on her clothes, but still, it is easy to see why this was such an important find. Modern DNA analysis and research have led to a complete rethinking about Arnegunde and her clothing. I think it makes much more sense than the original interpretation.

I’ll be organizing all my notes over the next few days and posting new pictures as I absorb all of what I learned.

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