What is This Gigantic Thing?

It's called a ham boiler. A popular enough implement that toy versions were made.
 
Thanks Doug.
I didn't buy it yet. I have no real use for it, but it's so visually striking I may go get it anyway. I just have to come up with a place to put it that my wife will approve of!

Why did people make ham boilers (and teapots for that matter!) out of a material that is so prone to rust?
 
Alex A, when you boil tea, it creates a protective surface onto the tea pot that prevents it from rusting. I don't know how long it lasts, but the Chinese have been making tea in cast iron pots for centuries.

Ham boilers I'm not sure of.
 
I have one of the ham boilers that I haven’t cleaned yet. But they were designed for a wood stove and may have been an option at the time of sale. The lids that I’ve seen were tin coated steel and most are rusted away and gone. I’m not sure if the lids came standard or were an option. Ham boilers were oval the same shape as a sad iron heater so you could remove two round stove eyes and the divider plate between them and have an oval hole to sit the ham boiler or sad iron heater into.
 
I am sure many hams were boiled in those elongated pots. Those were used to make small batches. Pork renderings, water bath canning, small cotton diaper cleaning???, small batch lye soap making. Anything needed in an indoor winter climate on a wood fired stove. Most were open to boil without a lid. Indoor or out.
 
Back
Top