this little piggy

My mother is not a ham lover.


Bad actors are not the issue.


For religious reasons, pork simply was not an entree item in the Cotton manse when my brother and I were growing up. No ham. No pork chops. No bacon. (At least, very little.)


I have made up for that in my adult years. Pork has constituted over half of my protein during the past few years -- mostly in stir fry.


And I have come to be quite a ham connoisseur, as well. There are simply too many good hams to be wasting time on cheap water-filled cuts.


When I moved to Mexico, I was thrilled to discover it was the pork capital of North America. Mexicans love their pig products.


My first trip to the lunch meat counter, I found nothing but sliced ham for sandwiches -- in a bewildering cornucopia of choices.


The young man behind the counter directed me to a large hunk of ham that he lovingly sliced for me. It was great.


When my friends Roy and Nancy visited me in July, we often had at least one meal of ham sandwiches. They liked the meat.


Then, I did something very un-Mexican. Having found a good product, I winged it.

I was standing at the meat counter. A middle-aged middle class Mexican man was placing his order. I noticed that instead of the rectangular ham, his order was round.


Now, I am an adventurous sort. Before the counter man could put the round piece away, I told him I would like 300 grams of it.


He looked at me and asked: "Are you sure?" And I said: "Yes."


The correct answer would have been: "Why?" But I was in my "buy-like-a-local" mode. That was clue number one.


Clue number two was that the total due was less than half of the usual amount. Price is not always a quality guide in Mexico, so I headed off to the cash register.


Clue number three. When I paid the store owner, he looked at the meat and said: "You want this?"


By then, I was committed. I paid, and went all the way home -- where I made a ham sandwich with my 7-grain bread, mayonnaise, mustard, leaf lettuce, Swiss cheese, and cucumber.


With my first bite, I realized why I received the third degree from the store employees.


It was terrible. There was a vague taste of ham. But the meat tasted as if it had been ground, spiced, and reformed.


The next day, I bought new ham, and the store owner started immediately: "Didn't like it, eh?"


I asked him what it was. He said: "Ham."


And he then explained that the lower-priced ham is made very similar to hot dogs and bologna. The meat is smashed up, spiced, and formed into tubes. So, I had that part correct.


I had to ask then why the guy I saw buying the "ham" insisted on it.


The store owner was candid. He knew who I meant. But he said most of his Mexican customers prefer the tube ham. For the same reason they like hot dogs and bologna. They like the texture. They like the taste. And, he said, they also like it because it is less expensive. "We were a poor country for a long time."


This little piggy is not going to have any more of that ham. Nor is he going to have roast beef -- despite the little rhyme.


But he will have plenty of that delicious sliced ham that costs a bit more.


Because a day without a ham sandwich is like a day without pork rinds.