Easter is fast approaching, so of course I’m thinking about ham. This iconic centerpiece of the Easter dinner table isn’t usually associated with the barbecue pit – at least not anymore – but it’s time that changed.

Ham and barbecue have had a long and somewhat rocky relationship. Both have smoky roots in the early American colonies – especially Virginia – but they originated separately. Europeans had a long tradition of salting and air-curing hams, but that method proved insufficient for preserving pork in the hot, humid climate of the New World. The Virginia colonists started rubbing their hams with brown sugar and salt and hanging them for weeks in smokehouses instead of out in the open air.

These days we call that salt-cured, long-smoked meat “country ham,” but back then it was just “ham.” There was no need for the qualifier before the 19th century, when a new type of meat arrived on the scene. As major pork-packing centers such as Cincinnati and Chicago emerged, their large-scale producers adopted a “wet-curing” method. They packed hams and shoulders into tubs and poured over them a sweet and salty “pickle” made by boiling rock salt, saltpeter and sugar in water. The hams remained in the pickle for five to seven........

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