Virginia Ham Biscuits: They’re on a Roll
I have lived in Virginia my entire life. I grew up and went to college in the Southwest portion of the state deep within the Appalachian Mountains. I used to spend a fair amount of my summers in Richmond. I currently live in the suburbs of Washington, DC in a part of the state known as Northern Virginia to the people that live here and NoVA to the people that do not.
The state is outlined by the Chesapeake Bay on the East and the Appalachian (a-puh-LATCH-uhn) Mountains to the West which gives the state both coastal and mountainous regions. There are large rural expanses and densely populated cities in Virginia.
Growing up here, there was one thing that I assumed everyone agreed on — ham biscuits. Virginia is known around the country for its high-quality ham. Smithfield Ham, which is the second best ham in existence (first being that crazy expensive Spanish Iberian ham) is even protected by law. Misrepresenting your ham as a Virginia Smithfield ham is actually a crime in the state.
§ 3.2-5419. Smithfield hams defined.
Genuine Smithfield hams are hereby defined to be hams processed, treated, smoked, aged, cured by the long-cure, dry salt method of cure and aged for a minimum period of six months; such six-month period to commence when the green pork cut is first introduced to dry salt, all such salting, processing, treating, smoking, curing, and aging to be done within the corporate limits of the town of Smithfield, Virginia.§ 3.2-5420. Only genuine Smithfield hams to be labeled or advertised as such.
No person shall knowingly, label, stamp, pack, advertise, sell, or offer for sale any ham, either wrapped or unwrapped, in a container or loose, as a genuine Smithfield ham unless such ham be a genuine Smithfield ham as defined in § 3.2-5419.§ 3.2-5421. Penalty for violation.
Any person violating any of the provisions of this article is guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor.
There used to be a clause that said that Smithfield hams had to be raised on a diet exclusively made of Virginia peanuts as well. That is no longer the law, but most hams sold as Virginia/Smithfield hams are raised on a peanut diet. You can call a ham that meets the above requirements a Smithfield ham, even it is not made by the Smithfield company.
I grew up eating ham biscuits. They were always around during the holidays, tailgates, potlucks, funerals, picnics… you name it. Any large gathering of Virginians would inevitably include ham biscuits.
Now, I know what you’re all thinking. Those of you that are not from Virginia are probably picturing something like this:
This is a breakfast biscuit with thick slices of country ham. While this is technically a ham biscuit, it’s wrong. Putting ham on a biscuit does not make something a ham biscuit. Ham biscuits are their own thing entirely.
I thought that this difference was completely understood within the Old Dominion. I assumed that there was a genetic coding of a proper ham biscuit (or at least, what I thought was a proper ham biscuit) in all of us growing up.
Well dear reader, I was wrong.
Dining in a local Northern Virginia establishment, I was served these petite ham biscuits, which were labeled as authentic Virginia ham biscuits.
These petite ham biscuits are on tiny 2–3 inch biscuits with thick-cut ham. Sometimes they include mustard, honey mustard, or cheese. While these are delicious appetizers, they are wrong.
This led to a pretty spirited debate among my coworkers (who mostly hail from Maryland) about proper ham biscuits. I went into a week-long hardcore research mode; scouring Yelp, old cookbooks, and photos of old family events to figure out what different parts of the state call ham biscuits. The petite party biscuits above are mostly popular in Northern and Northeast Virginia.
Lots of Virginians will picture these sweet potato ham biscuits as a true Virginia ham biscuit. I’ll admit that these are delicious and do pop up from time to time, but they are not ham biscuits at all. I found these primarily in Central and Southern Virginia.
These monstrosities are just terrible. In Southeast Virginia, they bake the ham into a biscuit that is in some sort mini cupcake mold. This Frankenstein’s monster of a ham biscuit should be immediately outlawed.
There is a final variation of the ham biscuit. This should be apparent to real Virginians, but it seems that others can’t wrap their heads around it. These delicious gooey morsels aren’t served on biscuits at all, but rather rolls. They have thinly sliced Smithfield ham, Swiss cheese, and a glaze made from butter, poppy seeds, mustard, onion, and Worcestershire sauce.
There is some debate on if the glaze should be applied to the inside or the top of the rolls, but they all generally follow those same ingredients.
Now I know what some of are you thinking —
“you can’t call those ham biscuits if they aren’t on a biscuit!”
I would challenge to apply those same rules to crab cakes (which are definitely not a cake), hot dogs (which contain zero dog), Frito pie (does not have a crust), hush puppies (hopefully you get this one), Buffalo wings (named after the city, not the animal), and chicken fingers (which they don’t even have).
Obviously, these are the best forms of ham biscuits and generally what people from my part of the state think of when someone says ham biscuit. But I was wondering why no one else makes these or has heard of them.
After some digging, I found out that these are actually pretty common, but there is usually a specifier put on the name. In some places they are called funeral biscuits, but the most common form that I have found throughout the country is Old Dominion Ham Biscuits. In fact, a quick search for Old Dominion Ham Biscuits reveals a huge number of them all over the world, but particularly in the American South.
I had never heard of them referred to Old Dominion Ham Biscuits, but I guess that is probably analogous to how they don’t call English Muffins English Muffins in England, they just call them muffins.
With this newfound knowledge, I hope that you expand your thoughts on ham biscuits. Now that you know the different variants, and which ones are wrong, you should spread the news. I even made this handy-dandy chart to help you remember.
