“Right now”? I haven’t finished my coffee.

Everyone Needs to Go to Finland and Try Sauna Ham Right Now
Food and Wine | Daniel Modlin

Sauna ham is real, and it’s spectacular.

… If you’ve ever spent time in a sauna in the U.S., it’s not the same. Chances are it was at a gym, and it was an electric sauna, and it was somewhat hot, but not really hot. That’s not the case in Finland. The Finns let the saunas get so hot that during the finals of the World Championships of Sauna (a very real thing), both contestants collapsed. One died of a heart attack, and the winner was immediately hospitalized for severe burns.

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Let’s get this out of the way first: Sauna ham is not cooked among sweaty sauna patrons …

Tamminen and her team carefully select large hams, salt them, and then net them into the desired shape. From there, they place a bunch of them “in meat wagons,” and the wagons are taken to the smoke sauna. Tamminen says they use large alder logs and burn them for several hours, and smoke is led to the sauna using flues. It takes 10 hours before the hams are fully cooked, and then they have to cool before being sliced into cold cuts.