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Let your ham soak all night in cold water, and then trim it handsomely, having first taken out the bone by loosening the meat all round it, with the point of a knife. Tie a broad tape round the ham to keep it in shape. Then put it into a large pan with some sliced onions, some sprigs of parsley, two or three laurel leaves, and a bottle of white wine. Cover it, and let it lie in the seasoning twenty-four hours. Then roast it, and baste it with the seasoning. A large ham will require four or five hours to roast. A little before it is done, take off the skin and sprinkle the ham with grated bread crumbs.

While the ham is roasting, stew together the bone and the trimmings and scraps till they come to a jelly, which you must strain through a sieve. When you take the ham from the spit (having removed the tape that has been fastened round it) glaze it all over with the jelly, laid on with a brush or a quill feather. Serve it up with the seasoning or marinade under it.

If the ham is to be eaten cold, you may cover it all over the glazing with cold boiled potatoes grated finely, so that it will look like a large cake covered with icing. Ornament it with slices of boiled carrot, beets, &c. scolloped and laid on the potatoes, in handsome forms, so as to look like red and yellow flowering. Stick a large bunch of double parsley in the centre.

A ham boiled in the usual manner may be ornamented in the same way; first extracting the bone, and making the meat into a circular shape.

Instead of a mere bunch of double parsley, you may stick in the centre of the ham a nosegay of flowers, formed of different culinary vegetables, and cut into proper shape with a sharp pen-knife.