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I haven't read the book, but I'm sort of surprised that in baking applications, the same ratios work whether applied to volume or weights of ingredients.

"One of the facts underlying the universality of ratios is that they are based on weight rather than on volume measurements"

Yes, you have to remember the basic ratios, but that's it really...as long as your units of measurement are consistent. Whether your measurements are in grams or tea cups, as long as you stick to the ratio, you're cool.

"One of the facts underlying the universality of ratios is that they are based on weight rather than on volume measurements"

No country ham in the house, and not sure where to buy any in Chicago...

Screw Smithfield. They're only good for throwing at Paula Deen.

A country ham, full of the complex flavors developed in the course of aging, is one of the glories of American cuisine. Actually, "faded glories" would be more accurate, because the days of the small farmer or service-station owner having a few home-cured hams to sell are pretty much gone. So are the "real" Smithfield hams that once upon a time were fattened on peanuts and left to hang for a year. Today, by Virginia statute, "Genuine Smithfield hams are hereby defined to be hams processed, treated, smoked, aged, cured by the long-cure, dry salt method of cure and aged for a minimum period of six months; such six-month period to commence when the green pork cut is first introduced to dry salt, all such salting, processing, treating, smoking, curing and aging to be done within the corporate limits of the town of Smithfield, Virginia." Six months, in my opinion, is barely — actually not even close to — enough time to make a great ham.

Also gone, it would seem, are all the hog farmers in eastern North Carolina who used to hog down their peanut fields (i.e., let their pigs out in the fields to finish the harvest of nuts and greens). A hundred phone calls had turned up exactly zero farmers who fed their pigs the old-fashioned way...

Country ham makers still follow the same steps but with a more compressed narrative. They start with leaner pigs, usually from a factory farm. The green ham (fresh and uncured) has less fat than an old-fashioned porker, which means it cannot age as long as ham did in the old days; it will dry out before the flavors mature...

There are fewer American ham makers now than there were in 1974 when Villas wrote, and their hams are rarely aged as long as they used to be. Smithfield, a name that once meant hams made from pigs raised on peanuts and hung for a year and a day, now means neither of those things, and the fine old Smithfield Company has the biggest operation in the country of environmentally ruinous hog factories.

A Ratio iPhone app is now available for purchase from iTunes for five bucks. Apparently it features all 32 "critical ratios", plus a bunch of converters & calculators.

I haven't read the actual cookbook, but this app sounds like it could be a handle little reference.

LTH,

"Ratio" by Michael Ruhlman is on sale at Amazon for $10.80. Hell of a price for a useful and interesting book.

Enjoy,
Gary