Special Prosciutto-cutor

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, special prosciutto couture.

Craig brings the case against his mother, Betty.

Betty has had a dry cured ham hanging in her basement since the 1960s.

She now wants to throw it away.

Craig thinks they should cook it and eat it.

Or if it's unsafe for consumption, he'd like at the very least to give it a proper burial.

Who's right, who's wrong, only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

First, you stole my sweetie.

Then you usurped my place as Castor's best friend.

Things were great before you showed up, but you made everyone forget me.

Well, I've been getting stronger, stronger than you.

I'll give you till sundown to leave Sweet Haven.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, swear the litigants in.

Craig and Betty, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he himself is a bit of an aged ham?

I do.

It's all I can think of.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I mean, what could you do, Jesse?

what could you do

you know what you you you shanked me since we're talking about cuts of meat you lamb shanked me

right in the right in the kidneys with that joke you really made joel mann laugh too right joel it's spiraling out of control oh stop

wow

joel with

everyone turn off their microphones

you too you too craig

craig and betty don't turn off their their microphones, anybody.

Craig and Betty, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment.

In one of yours, favors, can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered this virtual court of fake internet law?

Craig, why don't you start?

I

am going to let down my child.

I have a, I feel, relatively good hit rate in general, but of course, on the episode where I am a participant, I have no idea, so I will guess it is from

an episode of

Blues Clues.

An episode of Blues Clues.

Definitely a show where a lot of violence was threatened.

That is my recollection.

I may be misremembering it with True Detective, which I was watching at the same time my child was watching Blues Clues.

And by the way, you are going to let down your kid.

That's part of being a dad.

Oh, yes.

Well, they are turning 14 tomorrow, so that's I am in full-time disappointment mode.

Well, belated happy birthday to Craig's kid.

I'm glad I remembered.

I didn't let you down, kid.

Now let's turn to mom/slash grandmom.

This is your mom, Craig, Betty.

Right.

Betty?

Yeah.

Do you want to hear the quote again?

Do you think that will make a difference?

No, I don't.

I was listening carefully, and it meant absolutely nothing to me.

Usually, our cultural references, I'll give you a little bit of a hint,

because you're a nice mom and grandmom.

Usually, our cultural references have something to do with the topic of the day, the topic of the day being ham.

Ham.

Well, what crossed my mind was ham,

pig.

I'm going to say Charlotte's Web.

Hey, I don't mind that at all.

Charlotte's Web,

that's a top-notch main reference.

And of course, I am here in the solar-powered studios of WERU in Orland, Maine, 89.9 on your FM dial.

Also, WERU.org, Joel Mann, the main man.

Joel, what do you think?

Would you have a guess?

The movie Babe.

The movie Babe.

You know, I have to, I love the title of this episode, which is the

special prosciuto cutor.

But Jessica Thorne, did you know that there was a suggestion in the Reddit, which was for a title for this episode called

Babe 3 Pig in the Cellar?

It's pretty good, but too grim when we're talking about a salt-cured old country ham.

All guesses are wrong.

So, hey, Betty or Craig, you ever read the funny pages, the comic strips?

Yes.

Not anymore.

Would it mean anything?

Not anymore.

Would it mean anything that when this character says you usurped my role as Castor's best friend, he's referring to a character named Castor Oil,

who is the little-known sibling of a famous character named Olive Oil?

Oh,

okay.

Popeye.

Yeah, I was quoting from Popeye, but specifically not Popeye, a character named Ham Gravy.

And I couldn't, for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything truly hammy, but the first thing that came to mind was Ham Gravy.

This is just my kind of character.

He was the original star of Thimble Theater, which was E.C.

Seeger's comic strip that introduced Popeye.

And he was Olive Oil's

neglectful boyfriend.

And he and Castor Oil were kind of the co-stars of this comic strip with olive oil.

There was no Popeye.

And then 10 years into the run of Thimble Theater,

Castor Oil and Ham Gravy

get a magical bird called the Wiffle Hen.

And if they rub its head three times, good luck comes to them.

So they go to Gambling Island.

And to get them there, they hire a sailor named Popeye.

And Popeye is so much of a better character than these these two dopes, Castor Oil and Ham Gravy, that he immediately stole the show and became pretty quickly the star

of the comic strip and also Olive Oil's love interest.

And Olive Oil threw over Ham Gravy

for Popeye.

Now, this particular strip, you know, Ham Gravy was completely forgotten except for one very brief sort of, I think he had one line in the movie Popeye, the great comic actor and

new vaudevillian Bill Irwin played Ham Gravy in the movie version of Popeye, which is one of my favorite things too.

And I think he had one line.

No one knew who he was or what he was doing, except chasing his hat down the street.

And then Ham Gravy was otherwise forgotten, but he's been brought back by

Randy Milholland, a.k.a.

R.K.

Milholland, who was the cartoonist who started doing

Popeye cartoons for something called the Popeye Cartoon Club, which was online, until he got hired by the King Features Syndicate to do the Sunday strips of Popeye at the beginning of 2022.

And

I love his take on Popeye because he's bringing back all these old characters that are completely forgotten.

It was really an Simple Theater was this big ensemble comic strip with Popeye at the center of it.

And he's bringing back Ham Gravy as a heel.

who's constantly just a real jerk to everyone around him and an unlikable person.

In this case, this is actually one of his Popeye Comic Club strips that he tweeted back in 2019 where he had ham gravy coming back to get his revenge on Popeye for stealing olive oil from him and he turns out to be a real cad and a jerk.

Anyway, that's a little Popeye history lesson there.

I love old Popeye strips and I could only think of ham gravy.

And that's what got me to subscribe to King Features Syndicate.

For 30 bucks a year, I get to read all the Popeyes in the world.

Plus,

I mean, I think they're still doing Sally Forth and whatnot.

But now we're going to hear this case.

It was the case of an aged ham in the basement of Betty, a mom.

And the dispute is between her and her son, Craig.

Craig, you bring this dispute.

What is the justice that you seek?

I do, Your Honor.

I would request that the

ham, that Your Honor orders that we eat the ham, prepare it in a matter in which it may be rendered edible and then eaten.

Or if

all of medical science flies in the face of the advisability of that course of action, I would request that it be given a respectable and honorable burial.

It has been a part of the family longer than I have at this point, and to throw it out seems an ignoble end.

So

you're both in Maryland.

You're from the deep south of Maryland, Craig.

And Betty,

you're from the north of Maryland.

You're meeting together today in Baltimore, Charm City itself, to speak to us.

Thank you for being here.

But this ham lives currently in your home

north of Baltimore.

Tell me the story.

Has it really been there since the 1960s, Betty?

Well,

it's been with us since the 1960s, my husband and I.

You're saying you inherited this ham?

No, no, no.

We bought it, but then you say, has it been in that spot?

We didn't build a house until 1971.

When we built the house in 1971, the ham moved with us and moved into the new house as a new occupant with everybody else.

So it's been part of the family, yeah, and hanging there in the basement.

It's been moved around a little bit in the basement because the drippings of the grease get a little too much and they drip through all the cardboard and everything that I put down, so I have to move it.

But it's still there.

You're saying this ham drips?

Well, it used to.

Right now, it's sort of like

some kind of a weapon that you could take anybody down with it, just slinging it around.

It's so hard.

Well, I do want to ask what the texture of the ham is, but let me just put a pin in that just for a second.

We'll go straight to the evidence because I'm sure everyone is pulling over their cars to immediately go to the showpage showpagemaximumfund.org of

or to our Instagram at judgejohnhodgman at Instagram to see the photo, first of all,

of this ham and then also a photo of Betty, you wielding the ham as though you're about to bonk someone in the nose with it, Popeye style.

But

I've reviewed this.

This is a

country ham

from Virginia.

Country ham, of course, is a ham that has been

dry-cured with salt to draw the moisture out of it, to prevent microbial growth and to preserve it.

City ham

is a fancy ham that wears a little hat and walks around with a little.

Isn't that right, Jesse?

Yeah, that's correct.

A little more.

Walks around with a little cane and spats and stuff.

He's like, white gloves.

Yeah, white cane.

That was the plot of Babe 2, correct?

Yeah, that's right, exactly.

Babe 2 hammer.

City ham ham is wet brined.

It is wet brined, and it does not last as long as a good old country ham,

which, you know, they do not need to be refrigerated.

You've done nothing wrong, at least for the first year of this ham's life.

You're restoring it perfectly in a cold basement where it belongs.

Much like a prosciutto, you know, or any kind of European ham.

It doesn't, you can just, you see it hanging around

in a specialty shop.

That's where it belongs, hanging.

And this is specifically according to the evidence you sent in, Betty, a Smoots brand Virginia ham, cured in age in Virginia.

And it is wrapped in butcher paper and then wrapped

and then wrapped in a, it looks like a burlap sack, and it's about 10 pounds of ham.

Although the wrapper itself, it says conveniently on the exterior, weighs four ounces.

So you take back four ounces.

Plus there's the weight of the bone.

But there's a good amount of meat there.

In preparation for today, we did weigh the ham.

It had actually never been opened until Monday night of this week when we were speaking with Jennifer Marbur in preparation.

I think both of us had always been a little afraid we would have an Ark of the Covenant situation were we to open it.

But

we did open it, having it out to weigh it, and we found it weighed

just about about six pounds.

So it has lost over the over the decades, it has lost about four pounds worth of weight, probably in grease.

Okay.

Grease.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't know that they would continue to drip grease.

I mean, this is through the paper and a burlap sack.

Yeah.

Yes.

Now, I want to share the photo.

So, I mean, I could try to describe what I'm saying here, but I think it would work better if we just got Joel Mann's reaction.

He's not seen this, right?

No, I have not seen it.

All right.

So

first and foremost.

Does it have a name?

Oh, God.

That's a great question.

Betty, does the ham have a name?

It does not.

It does not have a name.

The surrogate child that you've kept in the basement all these years.

I think you should have a chance.

Well, it's kind of like Craig's brother.

I don't know.

Yes.

Otherwise, Your Honor, I am.

Like you, I'm a member of the Super Smart Afraid of Conflicts Narcissist Club.

Save for my ham brother.

Yes.

Save for my ham brother, which I'm asking you to order us to eat.

So maybe there's something I need to unpack there.

Look,

I thought

this sounds more and more like a Stephen King novel.

So I wish we were in Maine together right now.

So here's Betty in a delightful Minnie Mouse t-shirt holding up this ham.

Which, you know, honestly, that's six pounds of ham that you're holding up there, and you're hoisting it high and proudly, Betty.

So, here we go.

We're going to start.

This is the unboxing video, Joel, and you're welcome to give your honest reactions to what you're seeing.

Whoa, okay, so this is the ham wrapped up, dry cured in Virginia.

Mount Box 124, Mount Jackson, Virginia.

Is the address of Smoots?

Now, here it is lying on a really terrifying-looking

looks like a

freezer locker in your basement

next next to a bunch of odd electrical wires.

This truly looks like some found horror footage right here.

What do you think about that, Joel?

It's pretty scary looking.

Yeah.

And

this is the wax paper inside.

Yeah, I don't know.

And here's what it looks like.

I'd give it a name and then bury it.

This is the ham itself.

Did you take a look at this?

This Lovecraftian horror?

Yeah.

It's got a little eye.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Name it and bury it.

But there's this nice dog named Gibbs.

That's a good palate cleanser for that

photo.

I ate it.

That's a good palette.

Well,

the question to us is: should he?

Should anyone?

No.

No, no, no.

Let's take a quick recess and hear about this week's Judge John Hodgman sponsor.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Betty, you didn't, you've never named this ham, which I I think marks you as a fairly stable individual.

And yet you've had it.

You've had it in your basement for as long as I've been alive, more than 50 years.

So I need to know the story of the ham.

When did you get it and how?

My husband and I

had gone maybe to the Greenbrier or somewhere like that down south, and we were driving back.

And I remember going in this little country store, and he he said oh look at those hams and so he was mesmerized with these hams he liked anything that had sort of a local feel to it and so

so he said I think we should take one of those and I said okay

figuring you know we'll take it home maybe have it for Thanksgiving or something so we took it home and

I guess maybe a couple Thanksgivings went by when we were living in an apartment.

Then when we moved to a house,

I said to him one time,

what do you think about that ham?

Maybe we could have that ham?

No, no, he said,

I don't think it's ready.

I think it needs to have a little more time.

Okay.

So this went on back and forth a few times.

In the meantime, Craig was born and he accepted this ham as part of the family.

I did not have a choice.

Right.

You had to go down and visit it.

I was terrified of it as a small child.

He'd take his little friend.

We're going to get your story in a minute, Craig.

And so

it just went on like this.

And I kept saying, well, what about this ham?

No,

now keep in mind that Clark, my husband, who just recently passed away,

did not even like ham.

He would not eat ham.

And yet, the more he said it, the more I thought, well,

I guess I'll just, I don't know why we're saving it, but it's still almost up to the last year of his life, I think.

Didn't we?

Say to him, what about that ham?

Well, then he said, why don't I try to track down the company and I'll write to them.

Maybe they would like this ham for their museum or something.

So I said, okay.

Well, he started writing a letter, but unfortunately he became rather ill and never was able to finish it.

So, the company, who we've since discovered doesn't even still exist,

never got the ham for their museum.

So, it's unfortunately, its original string that was hanging it, it was a piece of binder's twine, I think,

finally broke, as you can see on some of the pictures.

So, it's now lying in state on a greasy piece of cardboard.

I don't even want to think about the sick thud when that string broke.

The thwap of that dry ham as it hit the basement floor.

What do you think was behind Clark's fascination with a food that he does not like

and yet will refuse to get rid of it?

You know, either by ingesting or throwing it away.

I can't, I can't even

fathom what that was because, first of all, he was not a hoarder.

He was not one to

keep things around

oh well papers and stuff maybe but um

i i just don't know but i i but once he passed away i thought you know we we need to do something with this ham i want to be nice to it i'm not going to be mean to it and throw it to the rats or anything i won't do that

um but i said to crazy

too no no no i said we're calivating for this ham no at least i hope not.

No, but we have a dump about five miles away.

I just thought we could wrap him up, him,

him.

Let's see.

There I am.

Yeah.

Wrap it up in a nice big, thick garbage bag.

My poor ham brother.

And take it to the dump and throw it away.

Not the cheap stuff, a nice, thick garbage bag.

Oh, yeah, the thick garbage.

For respect.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

What are they called?

Those great big bags?

Contractor's bag or a line.

Yeah, something like that, yeah.

If you go down to the Smart and Final, they're labeled contractor/slash hambag.

Yeah.

Hambag.

If I may briefly interject, I will point out

that she doesn't even want the rats to eat it.

She doesn't want anyone to eat it to the rats.

She's eating rats in a dump.

Jesse Thorne, please make a note in our IP log, in our super, super incredible, soon-to-be millionaires IP log.

Idea for animated movie.

Generations of rats living in a basement, worshiping a ham that's hanging from the ceiling,

trying to come up with increasingly Rube Goldbergian

schemes to cut that butcher's twine and get that ham down from the ceiling, finally.

So noted.

Thank you very much.

So that's the story.

Let me just make sure I understand.

So did you buy the ham from the company, from Smoots itself?

No, it was from just a a little, if I'm remembering correctly, of course, I was.

Who knows about that?

But just one of those little roadside country stores where you stop and they sell ham.

Classic country ham from a country store.

Right, right.

And just to remind me, were you in Maryland or were you in Virginia?

I think we had gone to West Virginia, maybe to the Greenbrier, and then we were just traveling

along the roads, which, again, Clark didn't like country roads because he said they were too windy.

And he said, don't ask me to go down there again.

But you got your ham.

So

I would guess we were traveling from West Virginia, probably up through Virginia and back to Maryland.

Yeah.

I did a web search for Smoots, Mount Jackson, Virginia, and there are a number of even roads named after the Smoot family.

And I'm looking at a real estate listing for what appears to be a gas station and country store at 101 Smoot Trailer Park Road in Mountain Jackson.

Uh-oh.

So I say we start an online fundraising campaign to get $166,300 and

get this ham store up and running again.

Would that be the site of the ham museum?

It's a great idea.

By the way, it sounds like we got some more for our unbeatable IP log.

We bought a ham store.

Got two podcasts.

So noted.

Craig, when was your first encounter with this ham?

When do you first remember being aware of the basement ham?

I was very small.

I don't remember the exact age, but I, as a child, was terrified of our basement.

In no small part because of this leathery object looming above me.

If I was ever told to go into the furnace room and get something out of the freezer, that was always very scary to me.

I also watched the film Night of the Living Dead Far Too Young, so that definitely had something to do with the process, but it was probably about 50-50, George Romero and the ham.

I can understand the fear because I'm looking at this picture of Betty holding the ham in the basement, wearing her Minnie Mouse t-shirt, and it looks like the most genial chapter in the Saw films.

It's pretty grim.

Proceed with caution to the Instagram account and the show page for sure.

Not for the faint of heart.

It did not help that the furnace room in which the deep freeze is and in which the ham spent the majority of its life and the entirety of my life

is behind essentially a hidden panel wall.

So it looks like...

Yes.

No.

So this is a ham of a Monteado?

Very much so.

Drip, drip, drip, drip.

Your home had a secret ham room?

You have to literally put your fingers into into a knot.

This is the kind of thing that my father loved.

You have to literally put your fingers into a knot in the wall, in one of the wood boards on the wall, and pull it out to get this part.

And then just part of the wall swings open.

There's not a theatrical creak, but there certainly should be.

And the ham

hung in there until it fell?

Yes,

yes.

And it's still in there.

It's just lying in state like Lenin's tomb now.

Right.

So you say you were terrified of this ham, rightly so.

What was your reaction when your mom suggested throwing it away?

How did you feel about that?

Well, I had many decades in my own life between my initial fear and as my mom mentioned, I did go through a period where I was slightly older where I would,

I don't think I ever actively charged admission, but I would certainly take friends to see it in the hidden room,

like,

you know, a

room of wonders

at a sideshow or something.

But it just, it had always been around.

And

I had been, I think, saying for years, what are we going to do something with that?

Because it just seemed silly to have it down there.

And my father would always say, oh, yeah, we'll get around to that at some point.

As my mother mentioned, he did not like ham.

I don't recall ever seeing my father,

other than out of extreme politeness, and occasionally occasionally not even then,

eat a piece of ham of any sort.

What do you think his relationship to this ham was?

Why was he putting off eating it?

Why wouldn't he let anyone get rid of it?

Why was it being moved around?

Was it a funny thing for him?

Did he have a sense of humor?

What's your guess?

He very much had a sense of humor.

It was not sort of a practical prop humor type of thing.

He had,

I would say, sort of old-fashioned dad humor, which I have inherited it.

He and I both had a love of shaggy dog stories.

We would often see how long we could lead each other on in a story leading up to a truly terrible pun at the end before the other could cotton on to that's what we were doing.

But I don't think the ham itself

was related to that.

My best theory is that he, having been born in 1924, he grew up and spent a lot of his childhood and young adulthood in the Depression.

And I think as a result of that, he was always,

as my mother said, he didn't tend to keep things.

The papers that she mentioned were generally receipts or other things like that.

I think food specifically, having grown up

in the Depression, especially nice food,

was something that he valued and hated to see wasted.

And so I think his distaste for ham

warred throughout his life with:

you know, we paid good money for this ham.

It's wasteful to throw it away.

I got you.

And it's been preserved, and it's there in the basement as a bulwark against starvation.

Should the depression come again, you can always bring up the ham.

I genuinely do think that was part of it.

I genuinely do think that was part of his thinking:

well, if we lose everything else, at least we have this ham.

Betty, does that track with you?

Does that seem to make sense?

It does make sense

knowing how he was.

Yeah, it does.

Craig,

you suggested two possibilities for the ham.

Either eating it

or giving it a proper burial.

First off,

do you really want to eat this thing?

Is that an idea?

I do.

Yeah.

No,

I do.

My wife of 23 years, whose name is Anya and who is is a whole human being in her own right, is

a real veterinarian

professionally.

Yeah.

Good.

A normal worker.

Oh, absolutely.

She works actually emergency veterinary medicine.

So she does the hard stuff at all hours of the night.

And I have nothing but tremendous respect for her and the hard work she puts in.

Like, for example, if a rat were to eat a 50-year-old ham.

And it needed to be rushed to an emergency room, yes, that's exactly the sort of thing that she would do.

But she is also a really wonderful and avid cook and baker.

And so I'm fond of saying she's an expert in all forms of curing animals.

She makes her own sausage and jerky, things like that.

All right, turn off the microphones now.

You tricked me into a shaggy dog story.

You clarked me.

You started out making me believe you were giving a lovely and rather long for a podcast tribute to your wonderful wife, and it ended up just being a joke about her curing animals.

Shame on you, Craig.

I hold you in light contempt, of court.

Can't it be both, Your Honor?

But back to the original subject of my reason for bringing up my wife.

What does your wife have to do with this ham?

That's what the world wants to know.

She is

very much of my opinion that we should cook and eat it.

In fact, I think it was originally her idea that because I was simply looking at it and thinking, we've got to do something with this ham.

And she got

more and more excited thinking about it.

She said, we could cook it.

Why don't we have it?

Why don't we cook it for some big family event?

Nobody would come.

My aunt has already said she's busy that day, whenever that day might be.

Was she there when you finally unwrapped it?

She unfortunately was not.

She was working that night.

My child was, and they were firmly in our camp.

This is the child who's about to turn 14.

They were formally in our camp about eating it, and then having seen it unwrapped, they have now swapped to my mother's side of the equation and do not want to eat that ham.

Well, you're going to prepare the ham.

I mean, it's got a soak or whatever.

Oh, yes.

Right, country ham?

Yes,

it is, I think, salt and sugar cured according to the semi-legible grease-stained instructions on

the ham.

There are also instructions, but they were so grease-soaked that I couldn't open them without destroying them.

Did you get a picture of that?

Yeah,

they are, I think they are not part of the evidence to this, because they are so illegible, but they were inside the little mail-order ham card, which says you can order by mail, and it says mail me blank hams, and I prefer hams about blank pounds in weight.

So, presumably, back in the wonderful days of the past, one could have ordered a dozen 10-pound hams by mail.

This is in evidence as well, and I just want to say you undersell this card.

It is so charming.

It says, Dear Mr.

Smoot, please mail me blank hams like the one I have just enjoyed.

It's so lovely.

No postage necessary.

Hams shipped via parcel post COD.

Tell me about what it felt like when you were opening that ham, all the sensory experience that you took in in that moment.

Because this is the first time I I was enwrapped, right, Betty?

Yes.

The burlap on the exterior is very brittle at this point.

I had always,

having been familiar with a ham, I had always thought it had a sort of a waxy scent to it, and I assumed that was just because of the area in which it's stored.

My parents have actually pictured in the image of my mother holding the ham.

You can see an old wrought iron chandelier slash candelabra hanging on the wall.

There were multiple candles stored down there.

I always assumed it was just sort of the fact that the basement always smelled a little bit like wax.

Also, my father kept bees, so there was also always an omnipresent bee wax smell.

You took a long time to reveal that your father was an apiarist.

He was a man with many layers.

So any smells?

Did you touch the ham?

Yes, I did.

So

the wax smell intensified upon opening the outer burlap bag, and that's when we realized there was this butcher paper, heavily waxed paper inside, and that seems to be where all the wax was coming from, now obviously heavily soaked with grease that has spent years soaking through and dripping.

The ham itself, texture-wise, is

fairly waxy as well, but smooth to the touch.

I would assume the wax has rubbed off from the bag.

Was it hard or was it

rock-solid, solid, yes, Your Honor?

Rock solid.

No give whatsoever.

Was there any mold on it?

No,

not at all.

And no smell of decay or rot or fungal growth or anything of that sort.

I think the smell has long since dripped out of it.

Yeah, that's right.

Have you consulted any experts with regard to the physical safety of eating this ham that is 50 years old?

I have not consulted any experts.

I did a few very brief Google searches and was not dissuaded by that.

Because you were not dissuaded because it gave you the news that it was okay to eat 50-year-old waxy hard ham or because it said, don't eat this, but you're like, no, I don't believe you.

It was the former.

I don't, candidly, at this point, I don't know that there was anything that would be harmful about it.

It's more mummified than rotted at this point.

I don't really know that it's going to taste very good, but who knows?

Sauces can do wonders.

Now, as an alternative, you have suggested a ham burial ceremony.

What do you envision if I were to rule against eating the ham and instead would dispose of it how?

What's your mind picture for this ceremony?

I would like to lay it to rest in the same place as many other beloved pets of the family over the years in the woods outside my parents' house, if they would permit.

If not, we would happily take it to our place

and bury it there.

I think a brief but solemn and respectful graveside service would be appropriate and allow it to return to the world from which it has been kept for over half a century.

What do you think about that idea, Betty, the funeral service for the ham?

I think it's unnecessary and a little bit hysterical to think of the whole thing.

Maybe I should have just asked Clark to put it in his will.

What can we do as a safe?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously.

That's why you work with a good attorney.

Estate planning is really important.

If you're a young couple and you

don't have plans, this is the time to think about it, honestly.

I know it's grim, but you could be left with a ham in your basement that you don't know what to do with.

Betty, tell me about the pet cemetery on your land, as if this whole episode wasn't creepy enough.

Well, we live in very deep woods.

We built our house in the woods.

And the first,

I don't know, eight or ten dogs that I had and I lost,

we buried them on our property.

made a nice little grave and everything.

And then it got to the point where it was, I don't know, maybe one died in the summer and it was too hot to dig a grave.

So then I started sending them for cremation.

So

and there might have been a few little things that Craig, he buried, I remember he buried some moles that he found when he was little and

probably lizards and stuff like that.

But

it's a big property, so it's

a plenty of room.

And I'm sorry for the loss of all those wonderful companions and also the moles, I suppose.

But when you were having your dogs cremated, did you continue to lay their

inter their ashes in this pet cemetery?

Or did you just

plastic?

Oh, they're in the house, okay.

No, they're in an urn in the house.

That's lovely.

So, Betty, how do you feel about Craig's...

Do you think that burying the ham in the pet cemetery among all of your previous generations of German shepherds would be

sacrilege?

No.

No, I don't think so.

Would you be open to that possibility?

Let me ask you

a little bit more plainly.

Okay.

Do you want him to bury his ham brother

with your beloved companions?

Yes or no?

If it's your choice, and it is.

Can I say it would be okay?

Okay, that's fair.

You're a good mom.

If I were to order that this ham be cooked and consumed,

would you eat anybody?

No.

No.

I smelled it when he opened it and I touched it and I said, no, not for me.

Do you want your only

son,

your only child in this world, to eat a more than 50-year-old waxy hard ham?

No, I don't.

What is your fear?

That

there would be some sort of bacteria lurking in there

that would,

even though it's dormant, maybe

boiling it, they would all come to life and then he'd be eating this buggy ham.

I think we have another IP for you to find fun.

I know.

This one, Petty, have you ever considered writing horror fiction?

No, but I could try.

I won't watch it, but I could write it.

Yeah, fair enough.

Craig, you've heard your mom's wishes.

It was originally

her ham,

her and her and her beloved late partner's ham.

The ham is older than you.

The ham is your older brother.

That's your honor.

She doesn't she does she would prefer she doesn't want you to eat it, and she'd prefer to just throw it away.

Why what does this ham mean to you that you would have me overrule Betty, your mom?

I think

it,

to me, it has a link to my childhood, but also both of my parents.

And I think in a way,

having lost my father this past year and knowing that he held on to it all this time,

I think we need to do something with it.

I think we need to get it out of the house.

The The thing I would like least, even less than having it thrown away, wrapped in a heavy-duty ham construction contractor's bag and denied even to the rats, is for it to continue to linger.

It sounds like we have rats in our basement.

We don't.

When I said the rats, I was referring to taking it to the dump,

throwing it in the dump where the rats live.

We don't, we fortunately have never had any rats in our basement.

We have occasional mice, but I don't think that's.

Yeah, no, I think that

that was evidence of Craig's overreach in trying to argue his case by suggesting

that your basement in your well-kept home is full of vermin just waiting to get their fangs into that ham.

But I am curious.

All right, I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I'm going to go into the secret basement room here at WERU.

I'm going to put my finger in the knothole and open the secret door to go into my inner sanctum.

I'll be back in a moment with my verdict.

Or will I be?

Maybe I'll be eaten by a ham.

Or it may fall on your head.

Precisely.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Craig, how are you feeling about your chances?

Well, I think I came off as far less stable than I had hoped to coming in.

So

not

I think at least we outlined what the situation is.

And

I'm not optimistic about the ability to actually eat the ham at this point.

I seem to be vastly overruled by wiser minds, but

I feel at least that I've been able to make a case for the fact that it deserves something other than a garbage bag and being just tossed out after all this time.

How do you feel, Betty?

Well, um, I would def I would definitely feel rather upset if he decided to eat it.

But I have to say, in all honesty, I would be okay

burying it.

I don't expect to have a marker at the grave or anything like that, but we've got plenty of room where we can dig a hole.

And

I wish I knew

what Clark would want, but I've been trying to get an answer, but I'm not getting any answer.

So

he's off today, I guess.

I don't know.

Well, we'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about this when we come back in just a moment.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

i know where this has ended up but no no you would be wrong we're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing yeah you don't even really know how crypto works The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

We're taking a break from the case and we're making preparations for our first ever tour of Europe.

That's correct, Jesse Thorne.

We've already spoken about how we are going to be at the London Podcast Festival.

Of course, that country is no longer part of Europe, I'm sorry.

But we are going to Europe.

We're going to Ireland and we're going to Denmark, as well as other cities in the United Kingdom of non-Europe.

We're so excited about this.

We've been wanting to do this for a long time.

Jesse,

run it down for them.

September 10th, we're in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

That's my stepmother's hometown.

We're also headed to Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.

We're going to do a show in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Of course, two shows in London at the London Podcast Festival.

I'll be doing three shows because I'm doing Jordan Jesse Go as well.

And then?

Continental Europe, folks.

Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the greatest cities in the world.

All 20 of our fans in Copenhagen have to come to this show.

Yeah, get thee to the comedy zoo in Copenhagen, Denmark.

John, I have a comedy friend in Copenhagen.

My friend Anderspreinholt got us this gig,

and he's going to open for us with his podcast partner, also named Anders.

The two Anderson.

All people in Denmark are called Anders.

Both Anders and us.

And they all look like handsome sea captains.

Handsome sea captains.

So look, here's the good news.

If you are a member of Maximum Fun, if you have gone in the past to maximumfun.org slash join and you are a member, check your email because you're getting a code right about now for the pre-sale, which starts Wednesday today.

That's today, the 26th of July.

If you don't happen to be a member, you can fix that, but you will also be able to buy tickets starting on the general sale day of Friday, July 28th.

MaximumFund.org slash events is the place to go for all the info and ticket links.

General sale begins Friday, July 28th.

If you're a member, check your email today, Wednesday, July 26th, because you got a code to get early tickets right away.

Please go get them.

We're going to Europe.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Speaking to both of you, and it has been lovely to do so, I was reminded

of my visit to the Whaling Museum in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

I've only been to Nantucket once in my life, and I went to the Whaling Museum.

And in the Whaling Museum in Nantucket, Massachusetts, there is suspended from the ceiling the skeleton of a sperm whale.

And if you look to the floor, you will see an oil stain

where the sperm whale skeleton, which has been dead for,

I don't know, a century,

still will occasionally drip some whale oil down.

I mean,

the persistence, I don't know what this is

metaphorically, if it's at all metaphorically tied to what we're talking about here.

It was just something that reminded me, and the persistence of oil, I guess, not life, obviously, because what we've also been talking about is

life passing and the transitions of life.

But the persistence of dripping oil.

It's just, you know, some things just never stop.

Some things just never give up.

That's what makes this ham,

that just makes this ham so creepy.

It's still going.

Just the idea of salting and curing, you know, fresh meat in order to

rid it of moisture to reduce microbial growth and to save it and preserve it without refrigeration like this.

It's just,

it's astonishing.

It's astonishing persistence of things like whale skeletons and hams.

Just, you know, something to think about.

Another thing to think about is, yeah, that skeleton is still dripping whale oil, but I'm not going to eat it.

That doesn't mean it's good to eat.

And I hate to say this to you,

Craig, and your glorious and gluttonous veterinarian wife, but you're not going to eat this ham.

You're not going to eat this ham.

Now, I could say because it's not safe.

I don't know.

I don't know.

We consulted with a food safety expert and food historian, Marion Nessel.

She's a molecular biologist, nutritionist, and public health advocate.

She's written a lot of great books about food.

And she's seen the photos of the ham, and her verdict was, if it doesn't smell horrible and isn't crawling with living whatever

bugs, I suppose, it is probably okay.

It looks pretty well preserved, but it isn't something I'm interested in trying.

I would rather leave the experiment to someone else.

So there, Marion Nessel opened the door for me to rule in you performing this

experiment.

But I'm not going to for these reasons.

One,

the USDA and all of the country ham websites that I consulted suggest that a whole uncut, dried, cured, or country ham can be stored safely at room temperature for up to one year.

One.

One year.

Oh, no.

Now, obviously, the USDA and these country ham websites are covering their hams, if you will.

Covering their ham hocks, covering their butts.

That's probably a very conservative estimate for how long a ham is good.

But one year

is about one somewhere between 150th and 160th of the amount of years that this ham has been in a basement.

I think that it is probably

unlikely that this ham would kill you

or even make you sick.

I think that it probably would be very hard to rescue from its mummified state into something that is good to eat or nice to eat.

And also maybe it could kill you.

And I want you to live, Craig.

I don't want my podcast to be any part of a storyline where a wonderful woman who has raised 14 German shepherds and had a 58-year marriage and raised a wonderful, funny, and likable son who loves Judge Sean Hodgman, who has just lost her partner of 58 years, to then lose her son to a basement ham.

I don't want to have anything to do with that.

I want to stay away from that.

But the final and most important reason why you can't eat this ham is your mom doesn't want you to.

And I'm not going to get in the way of that.

My jurisdiction does not supersede mom's jurisdiction in this case.

So we're taking that literally off the table.

I'm sorry.

But I do agree that the ham's got to come off of the terrifying freezer locker in your basement and go somewhere else.

You know, it's Betty's property, this ham.

She has every right to just wrap it up and throw it out.

And yet you have made the case that you have a relationship with this ham.

and there is some unanswered mystery as to why Clark kept the ham.

And you've done a fair amount of thinking as why that might be.

And I find you're, I mean,

we can't read minds, but I think that's a pretty good guess that he didn't want to waste that food.

That resonated with me in any case.

Whatever the reason that he held on to this ham, that mystery is part of what connects you to it and to him.

I think it's an extremely terrifying thing to keep in your basement, basement, and it would be hard to part with, to go into that basement.

I also feel as though it is a curse that Betty is finally getting free of.

Truly, she's been

trapped in the house by a ham for a long time.

And either the ham's got to go or she's got to go.

I just hope that getting rid of the ham breaks the curse instead of causing a new curse because you got rid of the special ham, something terrible is going to happen.

I don't know.

That's a different horror.

That's an IP that we haven't developed yet.

I think the ham has got to get out of there.

It's got to be exorcised from that basement.

And so

here are your options.

One is to bury it with all of the German Shepherds, which I think is very sweet of Betty to allow you to do.

When I asked her, yes or no, do you want this?

She gave a very, very decent mom answer,

it would be okay.

That is all parents know, including you, Craig.

When you say, oh, that's okay,

that means, no, I do not want you to do that.

But it is part of my job to let you do things that are dumb.

It is part of my job to let you live your own life

and eventually replace me.

That said,

maybe, maybe you can get Betty from a okay to a yes.

If you frame it such as, in many, many cultures around the world, burial rituals involve burying loved ones with things that they loved,

maybe, and often with things like horses and other and food provisions to provide for them on their journey to whatever afterlife that culture believed in.

And I think you started to make an argument, and maybe I'll help you complete it, Craig, by saying if you bury that ham,

Burying that ham with all of those dogs is better than throwing it to the rats in the gar in the dump.

Burying that ham with all those dogs is giving those wonderful dogs a feast in the afterlife.

They are going to love that ham.

They're going to be so happy.

How many years did those dogs look at that ham and want to eat it?

How many basement trips did they make to stare at that ham and maybe lick some of the sweet, mummified ham grease that dripped off of it?

That's one way to do it.

And I'm going to let you and Betty choose if that's the way you want to do it.

I'm just going to throw another idea out there.

We don't know what Clark's final wishes were other than he started a letter to the defunct Smoots Virginia Ham Company.

The intent was to ask if they wanted it for their ham museum.

I love the fact that he presumed that there was such a ham museum there.

In, what's the town again, Jesse Thorne?

Mount Jackson, Virginia, is that right?

That's correct.

But we now know there is no ham museum there.

There's just a general store that's for sale.

To some degree, Clark was curious as to whether this ham could be returned to where it came from for someone else to enjoy or to use.

Thanks to the detective work of Bailiff Jesse Thorne, we have an address in Mount Jackson, Virginia, where potentially this ham was purchased.

If you and your mom

and your family, Craig,

wanted to take one final ride down those country roams to take ham home,

I think that that would be also very symbolic and fun and interesting.

Maybe your mom can verify through memory whether this was the place where the ham was purchased.

Maybe not, but that might be a fun trip.

It's about two hours and 38 minutes, 151 miles, according to my mapping program here.

I'll let your mom decide which one she likes better.

Either feed the dogs

or

try to bring that ham home

and bury it there with

however much of the letter that Clark wrote

before he set it aside.

Either way, that ham is going in the ground.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Craig, how do you feel?

I feel that that's a

very reasonable and appropriate resolution that will result in

potentially the loss of another family member, namely me, if the ham situation were to go poorly.

I will say I certainly respect the decision and I will respect whichever choice my mother makes.

I will say there's a lot of wisdom in the judge's suggestion, and as much as he disliked windy roads, my father did love car trips and road trips.

So that might be a fitting tribute.

Petty, how do you feel?

Well,

I have to say that

one point that the judge made about

the fact that Clark was interested in

getting the ham back to its home and

getting it into a museum

tells me that he probably would want to hold on to it and so putting it in the ground would probably be what he would want.

So I would be happy with that.

Betty Craig, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Judge Hodgman, I have a little bit of good news for our listeners as we say goodbye to this case.

Oh, what's that?

Stay tuned through the credits for a conversation with America's number one ham celebrity.

Number one ham celebrity.

Number one ham celebrity in the entire nation.

I don't know if there's Iberico celebrities in Spain that outstrip him.

It's possible.

But here in the United States, the number one ham celebrity.

It's a little something called a tease.

Consider me teased.

Another Judge John Hodgman case is in the books.

In a moment, we'll have Swift Justice.

Our thanks to Redditor Kmack,

could be K-Mac, but I feel like KMAC is funner, for naming this week's episode Special Prosciuto Cuter.

Join the conversation over at the Maximum Fun subreddit.

That's at maximumfund.reddit.com.

That's where we've been asking for your case names.

Evidence and photos from the show are posted on our Instagram account at instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

Make sure to follow us there.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

This episode was recorded at Clean Cuts Music in Baltimore, Maryland, and at WERU in Orland, Maine.

Our thanks to Joel Mann at WERU for engineering this episode.

Marie Bardy runs our social media.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer small disputes with quick judgment, Redditor the Will the

says, my girlfriend hates when I use our kitchen sponge for cleaning pet food bowls.

She throws it away for fear of cross-contamination.

I don't think it matters what you wash with it, as long as you're using soap.

I'm going to say this.

It's just food.

I get it.

People get skeeved out.

You know what?

I get skeeved out.

You know, sometimes our cat eats some special food.

That's how we get her to eat her anti-itching medicine because she's a very delicate lady.

And of course, the cat never finishes all that food, and there's just like crumbs of wet food in there.

And I'm going to tell you what, it's disgusting.

Is it cross-contamination?

No, that's food.

It's food for animals.

It's food for us.

It's not going to harm anybody.

It's not going to make anybody sick.

And it's probably, it's been out of the can for 35 seconds before the cat eats the two bites that it deigns to eat and leaves the rest behind.

And now it's our human job to take that disgusting food and get rid of it.

But we could get rid of it just by eating it.

We wouldn't be sick.

We wouldn't be sick.

All that said,

I'm with the will of this girlfriend here.

I would wipe that out with a paper towel that I throw away before I use my dish cleaning sponge to do it.

Not because I'm afraid of getting sick.

It just grosses me out.

That's my threshold.

Just get a separate sponge.

What does a sponge cost, the Will the?

Get a sponge that's shaped like a cat.

You know, like a silhouette of a cat or something.

Use that.

And then everyone's happy.

Hey, it's still summer.

And we still need some summertime cases.

And I'm going to open the screen porch door to cases regarding ham.

Burgers?

Yes, that's right.

I want some grilling disputes.

Wow.

You know, outdoor cooking disputes.

Yeah, I'd love that.

What's the best way to grill a burger?

How do you make a smash burger outside?

Have you ever had a clam bake?

Clam rhymes with ham.

Have you ever gotten into a fight at a clam bake?

Main man, Joel Mann.

Yeah.

Have you ever gotten to a fight at a clam bake?

No.

I don't believe you.

I don't believe you for a second.

Have you ever put fish sauce on your hamburger?

No.

Try that.

No.

There we go.

We got one.

Me versus Joel Mann.

Fish sauce on a hamburger.

Send them on in.

And any of your summertime disputes.

Stuff to do with public pools, stuff to do with private pools, the country club.

Summer camp.

We've got another Robin Hood camp story coming in, and I'll read it to you if we get enough summertime disputes.

So send them on in.

Also, very important: London.

We're going there for the London Podcast Festival.

You can get tickets, obviously, we've talked about it already, but we need those disputes, we need those London-based disputes.

We got a couple rolling in.

If you're going to be in London in September and you're coming to the show,

think of who you're coming with and think of what's wrong with them.

Think of a fight you're going to pick with them in order to get on stage at a podcast.

It's going to be a lot of fun, and we're going to have a wonderful time.

So, we can't wait to see you there.

All of those and all your disputes go onto the internet at maximumfund.org/slash jjho.

maximumfund.org slash jjho just type that into your computer and submit your dispute don't worry about you don't have to prejudge whether your

dispute's good enough or something don't worry about it we'll check it out we check them all out maximumfund.org slash jjho i'm about to say we'll talk to you next time on the judge john hodgman podcast but there's a little treat coming for you a little treat We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Judge Hodgman, I promised that we would have a conversation with America's number one ham celebrity, and I'm prepared to deliver.

Our guest at the end of this Judge John Hodgman podcast is a legendary comedy writer who, among many other films and television programs, wrote for The Simpsons for many years.

He was the writer behind the infinitely memed steamed hams episode of that program

and has, in the years since, become one of America's premier social media food chroniclers,

as well as,

I presume, the President for Life of the Steamed Ham Society, Bill Oakley.

Hi, Bill.

How are you?

Thank you for that spectacular introduction and for the multiple plugs therein.

I appreciate it greatly.

Bill, do you have a Steamed Ham Society title?

I gave you President for Life, but...

I didn't have one until that moment.

I like that one.

President, founder, all those things, a creator,

whatever, emperor.

I haven't gone too far down that road yet, but thanks for getting the wheels turning.

Are you a ham eater?

I'm not a super ham enthusiast.

You know, given a choice, I'd rather have a roast beef or something like that, but I don't have anything against ham.

And I do, I'm familiar with the varieties of, you know, the country ham, the smoked ham, things like that.

And I wouldn't say I seek it out, but when it's served, I don't run away let's say it seeks you out

yeah we have we have a an almost supernatural ham to discuss with you in a moment that it does seem to have a mind of its own and um and stays with people but before we get into that i just wanted to ask you so you're known obviously for your wonderful reviews of fast food in particular uh convenience food i suppose um you know there has been obviously roast beef fast food places, ham burgers, hot dog specific,

chicken, obviously, but there's never been a ham sandwich from a fast food place other than like in a subway, I suppose.

But no one's ever tried to put out like a big hammy or something like that.

Am I missing something?

I think you are.

I think that

Arby's, I believe, at some point had a thin sliced ham sandwich, and I know that Burger King had one a decade or two ago that was called the yumbo, like jumbo, but with a Y.

I think, and it had that, I think it was on that long bun with sliced ham.

i'm pretty sure that was a ham sandwich too but you know ham is more people consider ham more of a sit-down food i think it's like turkey yeah uh and and that's why honey baked ham is you know when you think of a chain that sells ham you think of honey baked ham and they don't to my knowledge i think there was a seinfeld episode all about this at some point they don't serve food that you can eat there or they didn't they serve ham that you take home and you serve to your family for easter or whatever right right okay so you would actually go into a storefront that might be like, it would look like a McDonald's or a or a Burger King, sort of in the parking lot of a larger strip mall or whatever.

Yeah.

Honey-baked ham.

You would go in there and they just would have cases full of hams that you would take out of there.

You would never eat there.

It's an interesting thing that, given America's fondness for pork stuff in general, that ham and sliced ham hasn't really taken off as its own thing.

In our episode today, we were talking about

a family, a mother and a son, and the mother and her late husband bought a Virginia country ham in the 1960s, and it has lived in their basement ever since.

And now the mother wants to throw it away, finally, and the son wants to eat it.

My question to you is, if you were guaranteed that you would live, would you eat a 50-year-old country ham?

Boy, there's a lot of clarification needed to that question.

If I'd live and be on dialysis for my entire life or something like that, like you're saying

I'd live and I wouldn't have any long-term medical issues.

You've done some negotiating with genies before, haven't you?

Maybe.

Like getting some clarification, getting it writing,

getting all of the conditions worked out before you agree to anything.

We may have to replace some of your internal organs with a monkey's paw.

I knew the topic of this in advance and I didn't Google it.

So, therefore, I have to use my own instincts as to how long a country ham.

I know a country ham is the kind of thing that could definitely last for five years or more.

Whether it could last for 50 years, that's a judgment call.

And I think part of it would be,

it might be inedible.

I mean, I don't know, I haven't heard the rest of this episode, but it could be so hard that it wouldn't be possible to chew it, for instance.

But if it didn't smell, if it didn't have visible

mold or something on it, and

it didn't give off signs that it was somehow rancid, yes, I would eat some of it.

Wow.

Just for the just for the curiosity?

Well, I think that things that are smoked and preserved like that

are to last, you know, I don't know that

I wouldn't eat a Slim Jim from 1975, but there are some.

There, you and I differ, sir.

I think, I mean, I feel like that country ham could conceivably be like wine and might even get better with age, but I could be radically wrong about that.

Bill, moving off of ham for a moment, what's the most exciting fast food you've eaten recently?

Well, okay,

it's Culver's.

There's no question that Culver's is the best fast food in America to me.

I don't know if you guys live in an area.

I don't really know what it is.

I'm over here in Maine, and I've never even heard of a Culver's.

You guys don't have very many regional specialty fast foods right up there in Maine.

I never hear about anything from there.

Culver's has must have a thousand locations, but they're all kind of between Ohio and Idaho.

So they're not well known on the coasts, but their fast food is the best fast food in America.

And I would, I put money down on that, and I think people would agree.

Their double butterburger with cheese, their

roast beef sandwich, their cheese curds, their concretes,

it's somehow a cut above everybody else.

Wow.

In terms of food that everybody can get,

I wouldn't say that there is a real clear-cut winner right now, but I'd say if

the most widely available item that is delicious is the McDonald's quarter-pounder deluxe, which, you know, they now use the fresh, not frozen beef, and that's the one with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on it.

And that could be gotten anywhere, obviously.

That would be the one that...

would really stick out.

After that, it would be Wendy's junior cheeseburger deluxe for me.

Hey, Joel here in Maine, do you know if McDonald's is offering lobster rolls this summer?

I don't think they are.

No, I guess they stopped doing that.

I heard they were pretty good.

I've heard that too.

And, you know, they also have specialty things in the Del Marva region with crab.

You know, Maryland, they have an old bay filet of fish in Maryland.

No, really?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, someone's having fun at McDonald's, I suppose.

I'm looking through the Culver's menu.

This all looks delicious, but I don't see any ham.

I see opportunities.

Oh, here, contact us.

I'm going to send them a letter.

General feedback.

Continue.

Start to provide my feedback.

Suggestion.

Please select a topic.

Something else.

Ham.

I'm

here talking with Bill.

You mind if I drop your name, Bill?

Because it might be a good question.

No, please.

Go ahead.

It might get me a free t-shirt or something.

I'll get to the manager.

Here talking with Bill Oakley about your lovely chain.

But I,

Judge John Hodgman,

have a question.

Where's the ham?

Topical parody?

Would I like someone from Covers to follow up with me about my feedback?

Yes.

Yes.

I'd be curious to know what they say.

I almost guarantee they've had a ham thing at one point.

It's the kind of place that would have a ham thing, given it's like Wisconsin roots.

I uh I'm giving them my email and they're they're invited to write me back.

And Bill, if I find out, if I can confirm that for you, I will let you and obviously the listeners know.

Fantastic.

And maybe we can meet at Culver's sometime because I'm very, very curious about this place.

Oh my god, it will blow your mind.

I mean, it's 20% better than the best fast food you've ever had from any place, at least.

Bill, I'm it's just occurring to me now, but the Steamed Ham Society often has exclusive menu items at restaurants, especially in the Portland area, but around the world.

Maybe the next Calabo could be a ham thing.

There's been discussion of that, and I'm excited.

You know, if anyone from, let's just say, Arby's is listening to this, it has been discussed.

It has been discussed seriously.

We don't want to say it.

We don't want to say the name.

We would love.

Arby's.

Arby's is certainly the the best equipped to serve a ham sandwich, probably a ham and cheddar type sandwich, and make it a Steamed Ham Society special.

And as I'm, and I'm a big fan of Arby's too, they have a lot of, they get a lot of crap because their name is a funny sounding name.

You know, Jon Stewart was the pioneer of that.

But in reality, their fast food is so much better than Burger King, for instance.

Many of the items on their things are home run.

Their fish sandwich, surprisingly, is a home run.

The roast beef and cheddar, obviously.

And so, yes, Arby's, let's do a ham, let's do a secret menu item for the Steamed Ham Society, a ham and cheddar type thing with some perhaps some horseradish or something like that.

Mushroom.

Can we get in on

the collab?

Can it be like the Judge Ham Hodgman sandwich?

And it's got ham.

Wait a minute.

First of all, it's got old ham, oldest available ham.

Age.

Plus, Taylor.

I'm going to say it just this one time.

Normally I say pork roll.

Taylor ham on top of that.

Extra horsey sauce.

I like this.

I like where it's going.

I think it eats a little cheese, though, but your choice of cheese.

No, what if it's a choice of cheese?

This is a collab.

It's not just a cheese.

Oh, okay, okay.

Well, I would say cheddar then, or perhaps some kind of like

interesting, weird one like Fontina.

What about if we set this up at Wendy's?

It could be called the Dave's Judge John Hodgman

ham society ham sandwich.

I like that.

And it's so-called because they used ham that originally belonged to Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's.

That's also good.

That's also good.

And it sounds like

it could really take off big time.

Tell us about the Patreon and

what people get when they join.

Absolutely.

Well, you know,

everybody, people are familiar with the phrase steamed hams.

It's a euphemism.

If you've seen the sketch, you know it's a euphemism for hamburgers.

So I started this club about a year ago, a Patreon called the Steamed Ham Society, which is for people who like to talk about food.

You know, like I feel like fancy food is amply covered by newspaper critics and by the Michelin Guide and the Zagat Guide, but nobody really seriously covers stuff like, well,

the new

cheesy jalapeno quarter pounder

or things like that, or the new frozen pizzas that are coming out, or things like that.

So this is a, it's not just fast food.

It's actually

what we call everyday food.

And for people who are interested in talking about that, we have a discord, we have merchandise, we have a newsletter, we have uh, we have live streams, and there's also a special level for Simpsons fans, um, because of my connection to The Simpsons, where we have special guests from the history from classic Simpsons on live streams to talk about stuff.

It's a fun organization.

We have merchandise, and hopefully, you know, it's kind of like that thing like Oprah.

Remember how Oprah has that favorite things?

Uh, and when she says these caramels are the most delicious caramels in the world, and then that company becomes huge, we would like to have that kind of power in the next few years, the Steamed Ham Society, to say this hot sauce is the best hot sauce that we've had all year and

thus thrust it into the limelight.

This is fundamentally a power grab, you're saying for sure, for sure.

Absolutely, but it's also fun.

And people love,

some people like to talk about food a lot, and they should all join this club.

And by the way,

it's not just unhealthy stuff like potato chips as well.

There's also a vegan channel.

We had our first vegan

secret menu item.

And we also have people who like to barbecue, professional barbecue chefs and things like that.

Like it's, I would say it's not what you'd call fine dining, but it encompasses almost everything else in the American canon.

Bill, thank you for sharing both your time and your ham celebrity with us.

It's always great to talk to you.

I look forward to seeing you next time you're in Los Angeles.

We'll go to my favorite fast food restaurant, Taco Fiesta.

Fantastic.

I've never even heard of it, and I can't wait to try it.

Is there something special that we should get?

It's near my house.

We're just going to get hard-shelled tacos.

Okay.

Beautiful.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And I look forward to seeing you at Culver's.

And I hope you'll come back on the podcast sometime again.

It would be my pleasure.

All right.

Thanks, guys.

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