Saucing the Ham a la Gourmet Magazine
The end column of Gourmet, “The Last Touch,” usually focused on sauces for dishes featured in the main recipe feature and carried no by-line. In the April issue the writer pointed out that anchovy paste or peanut butter could be used in place of a mustard paste for a baked ham and that molasses, honey or maple syrup could be used instead of brown sugar. For special occasions, the columnist suggested sticking anchovy fillets, thinly sliced green peppers and well-drained, sliced pimientos into the scores of the ham.
The columnist was convinced that everything is better, including glazed ham, with cream sauce. The result was a culinary mixed metaphor combining the European penchant to up the fat and cholesterol content to the stratosphere with a cream sauce usually flavored with wine or mustard, and the Anglo-American carb-loving tradition of treating ham like a candy apple with a thick sugar-glaze coating.
For the sauces presented on the back page, which are more elaborate than the flour, butter and scalded milk mixes that were staples at the time, freshly made whipped cream, on the recent government no-no list, enriches homemade mayonnaise to which various ingredients, including alcohol, have been added. The recipes appear to be an attempt to approximate with prepared ingredients the complex flavors of elaborate sauces that would be made in a well-staffed hotel kitchen through long simmering reductions. Some of the sauces were recommended for cold smoked meats. The reader was referred to the March issue for the recipe for mayonnaise, although no doubt cheaters would have resorted to the bottled stuff.
The lead sauce in the column, Sauce Imperial, added catsup and Worcestershire sauce to the whipped cream and mayonnaise, as well as powdered sugar, cayenne, champagne, salt and brandy. Adding currant jelly, grated horseradish and Madeira instead produced Sauce Grenache. Grated horseradish, guava jelly, mustard, tarragon vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, cayenne and sherry made Sauce Radziwel. Whipped sour cream replaced whipped cream in Deviled Mayonnaise Muscovite, to which English mustard, tomato chutney, Worcestershire Sauce, Tabasco and finely ground seedless raisins were added. The simplest option was Raisin Jelly Cream Sauce which included raisins that have been boiled in bouillon, cayenne and red currant jelly.
The column also included an alternative basting sauce for baked ham made of hard cider, brown sugar, tarragon vinegar, cloves, cayenne, salt, cinnamon, powdered thyme and garlic clove. The part that remained in roasting pan after the ham was removed was used as the base for gravy.