Country Ham Festival/Broadbent's

I wouldn't think of encouraging anybody to attend the Trigg County Country Ham Festival. For one thing, you won't find any country ham there. The most exotic thing we found there was called a lemon shake, which amounted to cold lemonade...good, but not worth a trip to the corner grocery.
On the other hand, Al, Janet, Bushie and I all get some take-home from Broadbent's, at exit 65, on I-24 in Cadiz, Ky.
The precooked breakfast slices make for good driving snacks. When I got home, I made some crockpot pinto beans with ham hocks. As much as I would like to say otherwise, I actually prefer the Smithfield hocks that I get at my local supermarket. Those from Broadbent had a distinctly gamey flavor, that I didn't care for.
The peppered bacon, on the other hand, was stellar. I made blt's and don't think I've ever found better bacon. At $4.29 a pound, it's worth every penny.

Pete,
We did basically the same thing and found that using two small Ham Hocks in one large Crockpot of Pinto's made them so salty they were almost impossible to eat plain. The Bacon is good, and we chowed down on the breakfast slices (2 pkgs) but we were forced to share with the third member of our family.
I wanted to tell folks about how good the Paula Deen Recipe Hoe-Cakes were, but failed to get that included in an earlier description of our Savannah adventure. WELL, There they were on this week's Paula' TV Show. Say what you will about this lady's exploitation of/by the media...but we got the recipe for some outstanding Hoe-Cakes from this show. Using the wonder of this website we were able to alert the Poverty Pete, who shared the original adventure a few weeks ago, so he could get it also. Check her program website on the Food Network for the recipe under the program that stars the Baked Crab & Shrimp Salad (another winner)

Here's a link to her program website for the Hoe Cake recipe.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_24164,00.html

You guys think you have problems? I can't find good ham hocks here in the west. I think all the pigs are on the Atkins diet, along with the sundancer.I get bone and a little fat, BUT NO MEAT! It's hardly worth making a pot of beans! They should disintegate into nice pieces of ham, but these things seem like they came from my mother in law. Jeez....
Forlorn in Oregon,
Bill

Bill, you can see the catalog at Broadbenthams.com. They do mail order, but I notice the prices are quite a bit higher, than at the outlet store. If you want, I can ship you a package of anything they sell. I go past the outlet every week or two.

Bill...
Get Pete to ship you a Whole-Hog from Hays Smoker...55 lbs (average) of finished smoked Pork coming from a walking-weight 280 lb hog. Man that would be a package worth opening. To hell with the Country Ham...Go for the Hog !!!

Seriously. The Hocks we got were heavy with Meat, partially skinned! They were in beautiful shape. We needed to soak them a bit before using in the beans to take out some of the salt.

quote:

Originally posted by Poverty Pete

The peppered bacon, on the other hand, was stellar. I made blt's and don't think I've ever found better bacon. At $4.29 a pound, it's worth every penny.

I cooked the bacon for dinner tonight (with taters and eggs), and it was fantastic. It "cooks different", but it turns out yummy.

Pete,
We did the hoe-cake recipe today. They were very close to what we enjoyed in Savannah. A Hoe-Cake with a slice of the breakfast ham was a nice mid-morning snack.

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

Pete,
We did the hoe-cake recipe today. They were very close to what we enjoyed in Savannah. A Hoe-Cake with a slice of the breakfast ham was a nice mid-morning snack.

I saw Paula's show yesterday morning, and I thought of y'all. I told Mrs. Bushie about your "hoe cake" stories.

Personally, I would prefer less flour and more cornmeal, but that's probably why Paula is a millionaire and I'm not.

I'm going to try the recipe "my way" though...

My conclusion as to why it was so good was the addition of oil to the batter, then frying it in a 1/4 inch of more oil. Like Bushie, I'd be tempted to tweak the recipe with a bit more cornmeal, but that night in Savannah, the hoecakes were perfect.

quote:

Originally posted by Poverty Pete

I wouldn't think of encouraging anybody to attend the Trigg County Country Ham Festival. For one thing, you won't find any country ham there. The most exotic thing we found there was called a lemon shake, which amounted to cold lemonade...good, but not worth a trip to the corner grocery.
On the other hand, Al, Janet, Bushie and I all get some take-home from Broadbent's, at exit 65, on I-24 in Cadiz, Ky.
The precooked breakfast slices make for good driving snacks. When I got home, I made some crockpot pinto beans with ham hocks. As much as I would like to say otherwise, I actually prefer the Smithfield hocks that I get at my local supermarket. Those from Broadbent had a distinctly gamey flavor, that I didn't care for.
The peppered bacon, on the other hand, was stellar. I made blt's and don't think I've ever found better bacon. At $4.29 a pound, it's worth every penny.

Never tried their hocks, but the last 2 years I've ordered over the internet a cooked/sliced half ham from Broadbent's at Christmas and been very happy with it. I used to order them from Dulin's but I'm not sure what happened to them--but my mom seems to like the Broadbent's hams even better. In general, I think the Kentucky hams are better than Smithfield though there's hardly a country ham made by a reputable maker that I don't like (a lot!). But I find the Kentucky product sweeter and less salty than Smithfield.