Spiral Ham in the Slow Cooker

It seems funny to me, after all these years of professional cooking, to buy something already cooked just to have to “cook” it again. When it comes to a spiral ham, this process is really more about imparting flavor than about cooking the ham (which comes already cooked). When it’s finished, the meat should be tender and almost falling off the bone, and you’ll have a great cooking liquid that can be sopped up with rice, tortillas, potatoes, bread…or egg noodles tossed with a little salt and sour cream. When the maple syrup and brown sugar, each with its own deep, sulfur-y, molasses-y flavor, combine with the cider vinegar and the mustards, they create a tangy liquid to serve with this ham. I like to think of it as a marinade that comes at the end instead of the beginning. Sign me up! I love to serve a bed of braised cabbage here, too.