Garlic-Rosemary Roasted Picnic Ham Recipe

The first time I had fresh picnic ham, I was twenty-one, working as a chef in Imola, Italy. On a day off we went to the Formula One racetrack. In Italy, this type of stuff is their “ballpark food” — their version of a hot dog. They put freshly roasted whole pigs smeared with garlic and rosemary on trucks and head out to the speedways. You walk up to the truck and they hand you a slice they’ve just cut, topped with a piece of crackly skin. I love to make this on Sundays to eat throughout the week, but it usually doesn’t last past Monday. I use the shank end of a fresh pork leg — also called a fresh ham — because the dark and white meat and the connective tissue give you a robust pork flavor. Ask your butcher to score the fat for you — it’ll keep it from curling up. Or you can score it yourself by cutting a crosshatch pattern into the skin with an X-Acto knife. This dish is really hard to mess up — the skin protects the meat from drying out, so you’d have to really try to overcook it.