My Fair Boone

The apron-clad men jab ice picks into the end of a country-cured ham, one after the other. They bring the picks to their noses.

“Cheddar cheese,” Don Naumann and Andrew Clarke say in unison.

For the judges of the annual Boone County Fair’s Country Ham Contest, the smell of cheese in a ham is a tell-tale sign that it isn’t right for the breakfast table.

The duo, who proclaim themselves guardians of Boone County breakfast tables, judged 258 hams on Friday morning and chose the fair’s grand champion: a 17-pound ham submitted by Jody Bryson, 17, of Centralia.

Naumann, a retired MU professor of food science, and Clarke, an MU associate professor of food science, have trained their noses from years of smelling hams.

“You couldn’t ask for two more qualified people,” said Elaine George, a 4-H Club group leader from Hallsville who teaches members how to cure ham the traditional way.

Ham is rubbed with salt and sugar in late November, then hung in a shed to cure until May — when it’s taken down and cleaned — then hung back up to finish curing, George said.

Judging ham has become a tradition for the duo as well.

Naumann has judged the Boone County contest for more than 20 years, and Clarke, who learned about cured hams from Naumann, started in 1989. The two also judge cured ham contests in neighboring counties.

“Have ice pick, will travel,” Clarke said.

Naumann and Clarke judge the hams, submitted by youth from county 4-H Clubs and some adults in the general category, on appearance, outside color, skin smoothness, fitting, trim, firmness, meatiness and aroma. Aroma and meatiness are the most weighted categories.

Clarke said that when testing for aroma, he and Naumann judge the hams based on their knowledge of what true country-cured ham should smell like — rich, peppery and meaty.

“What we smell is what we expect to taste,” Naumann said.

There is one flaw to the aroma system, however.

“We cannot taste how salty it is,” Naumann said. He added that saltiness can be cooked out of the meat.

Clarke said that they do not taste the hams because the nose recovers faster than the palate. If they tasted each one, lingering flavors from one ham would affect their judgment of the next one, he said.

“Once you recognize what is desired, you can pick it out again and again,” Clarke said.

Although they don’t actually taste the hams, the men said smell is a good indicator of taste.

Forty of the best-scoring hams will be auctioned at the fair’s Country Ham breakfast Saturday, but the rest will go back to the person who cured them.

“Curing ham is a win-win situation,” George said. “If you don’t sell it, you get to eat it.”

The fair, located at the Boone County Fairgrounds north of Columbia off U.S. 63, opens at 4 p.m. Monday