Gammon is the hind leg of

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...

after it has been cured by dry-salting or

brining In food processing, brining is treating food with brine or coarse salt which preserves and seasons the food while enhancing tenderness and flavor with additions such as herbs, spices, sugar, caramel or vinegar. Meat and fish are typically ...

, which may or may not be smoked. Strictly speaking, a gammon is the bottom end of a whole side of bacon (which ''includes'' the back leg), ham is just the back leg cured on its own. Like bacon, it must be cooked before it can be eaten; in that sense gammon is comparable to fresh pork meat, and different from dry-cured ham like

prosciutto ''Prosciutto crudo'', in English often shortened to prosciutto ( , ), is Italian uncooked, unsmoked, and dry-cured ham. ''Prosciutto crudo'' is usually served thinly sliced. Several regions in Italy have their own variations of ''prosciutto crud ...

.W K H Bode; M J Leto.
The Larder Chef
'. Routledge; 25 June 2012. . p. 178–. The term is mostly used in the United Kingdom and Ireland, while other dialects of English largely make no distinction between gammon and ham.

Ham hock __NOTOC__ A ham hock (or hough) or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper no ...

, gammon hock, or knuckle, is the back end of the joint, and contains more connective tissue and sinew.GOOD HOUSEKEEPING.
Gh Food Encyclopedia
'. Anova Books; 2009. . p. 185–. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, joints of cooked gammon are often served at

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

. It can be found in most supermarkets either as a full joint or sliced into steaks, which can then be cooked via pan frying in a manner similar to bacon. The word 'gammon' is derived from the Middle English word for 'ham', ''gambon'', which is attested since the early 15th century and derived from Old North French ''gambon'', itself derived from Old French ''jambon'', which is identical to the modern French word for 'ham'. Old French ''jambon'' is attested since the 13th century and is derived from Old French ''jambe'' (''gambe'' in Old North French) which in turn is derived from the

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

gamba Gamba or Gambas may refer to: Geography *Gamba, Gabon, a port **Gamba Airport in Gamba, Gabon *Gamba, Chad, a town *Gamba County, Tibet People *Gamba (surname) *Gamba (footballer) (Carlos Alberto Gambarotta; 1893–1944), Brazilian footballer Ot ...

'', meaning 'leg/hock of a horse/animal', which can ultimately be traced to Greek ''kampe'' meaning 'a bending/a joint', which is from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

*kamp- (“to bend; crooked”). In some English dialects a similarly derived 'gambol' refers to a 'leg'.

References

{{Ham, state=expanded Ham Christmas food Cuts of pork Smoked meat

See also

References