Wow, what a generous neighbor! I haven't made a fresh ham for years, but think of it as a leg of hog. Most likely you will find a bone. Are you having a crowd for Christmas dinner or do you want to freeze it for later use? Remember that old quote....Eternity is 2 people and a whole ham!

I bet Paula Deen has a recipe for it!

And of course she does!!! LOL! It sounds wonderful! But I bet some of our wonderful cooks have some T & T ones for you!

Here is a link that might be useful: Recipe

Wow, lucky you! I haven't had fresh ham since we raised our own pigs. It is very flavorful, and I never did anything to it, except sprinkled with salt or garlic salt and pepper and oven roasted it like any other pork roast.

Thanks! for the recipes! I have never done anything fresh pork besides pork chops. Yes, it was very nice of him and his wife..but he does not realize what a city girl I really am. I just "married" a country boy. Will wait on husband to come home to tackle this thing. I am grateful, really I am, just overwhelmed at this moment. I called husband and he said something about a saws all to cut it up..I think that was what he said...I might have got the spelling wrong. Maybe you all can figure out what he was saying. This thing would not fit in my oven at the moment. DH said he would take off early from work to help me. Thanks all for recipes. Charlie said we could smoke some of it...that sounds good. I can smoke chicken and turkey pretty good so maybe I can conquer some of this.

Basically a fresh ham is like cooking a pork roast. Season it as you like (a good rib rub works well) and bake it to 160ð and you're done. Some like soy sauce, teriyaki and of course the FAS afflicted demand sugar and or syrup but I wouldn't.

I'd expect it to have the legbone still in it. ("Ham" is the upper part of a pig's leg.) You'd be able to tell if he had deboned it and I can't see that he would have. Some people are very fussy about having the bone in a ham. If you can smoke it, I'd smoke as much as I could. To me, that's the best ham, nice heavy smoke flavor.

Cutting it up is a good idea. A "Sawzall" is a brand of reciprocating saw. Some use the term in a generic reference as some use Kleenex or Jell-O for facial tissues and flavored gelatins.

A whole fresh ham is a lot of meat. If you don't divide it up, you're not too likely to go through it in one sitting..

I cut little slits in the meat and stuff garlic in them, I rub a light coat of yellow mustard over the whole thing then sprinkle on my seasonings, garlic salt, pepper, some Tony's cajun seasoning. I put it in my big oval roaster with some olive oil and some wine, cover it (I like to put a chunked up onion in there too for flavor) and cook it on about 350 till done and I use a meat thermometer to be certain. Coating the meat with a light coat of mustard seals in the juices and adds the most amazing flavor, it will not taste like mustard at all. You can also brown it on all sides prior to going in the oven if you are able to maneuver it but if it is huge you may not want to try that.

It will make a wonderful gravy that I use some cornstarch and water to thicken up an serve over cooked rice.