Steaming a Good Ham

I’ve made references to Steamed Hams on here already — in the gravy article it was used as a little joke about regional dialects. 

The original Steamed Hams scene appeared on a Simpson’s episode from the 1990s, and somehow developed a cult following by its reruns, that turned it into a meme. It’s been reworked into fanfiction and fully reanimated in the style of 1960s Soviet cartoons. It’s been overdubbed with opera and recut to resemble a Criterion Collection DVD of a François Truffaut movie. There’s embroidery of it. It’s surpassed memehood and become an artistic movement of its own.

The writer of the scene, Bill Oakley, claims it is very unusual and doesn’t resemble any known comedy. He’s wrong; it’s a type of joke that’s old as dirt, going back at least to the Commedia dell’Arte if not to ancient Greek theatre. It relies on a servant-master dynamic, where the servant character continually lies to cover up some mistake or misdeed, the improbability of the lies continually growing, and the punchline being that the stupidest lie is the one that gets believed. 

I’ve been through a few artistic phases. The art nouveau phase. The commedia dell’arte phase. The Sal Mineo phase. One thing is, I’m not big on doing anything original; my output is all about reworking something old. Steamed Hams is great for that, and so I am in a Steamed Hams phase.

Lately someone in the Steamed Hams Reddit posted a Shakespearean version that was rendered using ChatGPT. You can bet I’ve played with ChatGPT before, and, as of this writing, I assure that it is awful for rendering things into historical English. It has probably not been trained to know the dates on the texts it learns from, or else not to understand the significance of them. Its “Shakespearean” is largely very modern English peppered with a few doths and thous. It doesn’t try to substitute modern ideas like hamburgers or isometric exercise with anything correct to the Elizabethan era. And I know it’s equally bad with any historical author’s style. 

So it fell that, after seeing the awful ChatGPT Shakespearean, I knew I could do something better by myself. Using Spevak’s Shakespeare Thesaurus and Schmidt’s Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary and choosing All’s Well That Ends Well for my reference text, I got to work. 

Now, something Etymonline is very useful for is checking historical language on a project like this. Sometimes I needed a word that Shakespeare never used because he never happened to address the concept, or I needed a synonymous word with different syllables that never chanced to be in Shakespeare. With Etymonline, I could look up the word I was thinking of employing, and make sure that it was in use with the proper meaning during Shakespeare’s time. For example, in the original scene Skinner has to coin the phrase steamed hams as a variation on steamed clams. But, looking up clams, we find that while it seems to have existed by Shakespeare’s time, it was (ironically in this case) a word of regional dialect. I’d have to write it in the style of William Drummond of Hawthorne for that to work. So I altered that part to steamed lamb. (I don’t believe the culinary sense of steamed as a cooking technique was known in Shakespeare’s day, either, but artistic license was needed there, or else I couldn’t call the work Steamed Hams. Perhaps Skinner might be using it in a rare archaic sense of “moistened” or maybe in a sense of “having emitted steam.”) 

It’s all tedious work if it’s your first time, since you have to do this for most of the words unless you know them already from other period-appropriate texts. But it’s worth it. It’s very annoying to put in the work to be historically accurate then have someone catch an error later. A lot of modern words and phrases slip by your numerous proofreads, never seeming out of place because they’re so common now, yet would have been peculiar if not nonsensical in your target era. People who write in a historical style often specialize upon some era, because it makes it easier to retain in memory what words existed or didn’t in their chosen time.

A couple days of work for about 800 words, and I somehow feel like Shakespeare uses a lot more contractions than I did, and would have done something slightly different in the staging. I’m trying to envision it on an Elizabethan stage, which unlike modern theatres that have new sets for each play, had to use the same lone set design for everything. (Ever wondered why they have to rely so much on dialogue to establish where they are and what anything looks like?) Also they didn’t have ovens like today — they’re talking Dutch ovens, where cook-pot reads synonymous. And hamburgers as we know them being a 20th century concept, I thought a more Shakespearean dish might be meat pie. In the UK you can still find pie shops the way Americans have sandwich shops. Beyond that I wanted to be sure to hit all the Shakespeare stereotypes: blathering on for too long about some irrelevant but poetic detail, namedropping random historical/classical characters, and using the word thither. The dance made necessary by the original Skinner and Chalmers song in the original clip, is a Bergamask because it was a word I recalled from Midsummer Night’s Dream, and that’s as much as I know about Bergamasks.

Doug gave it some look-throughs and made some suggestions (Thanks, Doug!) He is better with metrics than I am, and I believe is planning something upcoming on the topic. 

It was when writing this article that it struck me: the show needed a prologue. I added one to it as the final detail, adapted from the Skinner and the Superintendent song. (Funny discovery — did you know the 1623 Folio edition of Romeo and Juliet does not include the Prologue, but the 1597 printing has a Prologue, but it’s not the one we usually hear? I wonder where on earth the one we usually hear came from, but that’s another mystery for another time.) To make sure my Prologue rhymed I checked The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation. 

And here we go…

STEAMED HAMS; or, SKINNER AND THE SUPERINTENDENT

The Prologue.

Skinner, from his antic explications,

Superintendent Chalmers’ heart doth grieve.

When he brunts such formless meditations,

Certain, then, a mischief marks this eve.

Actus Primus. Scoena prima.

[Enter Skinner the Principal and Chalmers the Superintendent.]

Chalmers: Hark, O Seymour, I am come, and this

Despite your poor-professed guidance.

Skinner: A! 

Greetings, Chalmers, Superintendent. Sit,

I pray, and hope with eagerness you burn 

For such a noon repast that in your thoughts

Shall live eternal as Endymion.

Chalmers: Verily. 

[Skinner discovereth the kitchen.]

Skinner: Egads! My roast is burnt 

And black! A woeful feast that leaveth tongues

So hot and wounded as this meat should make.

But lo! I see without this clear, smooth pane

That Krusty’s Piehouse claims my neighbour plot.

Peradventure I will thither fly

Then hitherward return, and cite the dish,

There cheapened with haste, as my concoct.

Ha! Schemes as this, delightful as those shewn

Of Mephistophilis in Marlowe’s play,

Become thee well, good Seymour.

[He would exit from the window. Chalmers observeth him, whilst Dancers enter and perform a Bergamask. Exeunt dancers.]

Chalmers: Seymour!

Skinner: Chalmers!

I but stretch my legs upon the casement.

In Siena do they counsel this

To strengthen humours and extend one’s life. 

Meet me, pray, sir! I entreat you.

Chalmers: Nay. 

Stranger things than this distrain my mind,

Which I perceive before me in this room:

Why smoke so black as from the mouth of Hell

Where weeping souls in anguish’d pain converge,

Now from your cook-pot reaches unto Heaven.

Skinner: Nay. ‘Tis no smoke you spy, but steam.

From the steamed lamb which I prepare.

The tender flesh, so succulent and fine,

Doth make me crave and yearn for us to dine.

[Exit Skinner unseen.]

Actus Primus. Scoena Secunda.

[Chalmers expectant to dine. Enter Skinner, bearing a platter of pies.]

Skinner: Prepare your mouth, good sir, in readiness

For pies of pork, of whose delicious scent

The tongue to ardent appetite is stirr’d.

Chalmers: Why, methinks thou spoke a while agone

That we should dine on steamed lamb.

Skinner: Oh, no!

I fear you, sir, mistook my syllable.

My labor was in cooking steamed hams.

That thereby, I style pies of pork.

Chalmers: Claimest thou pork pies are steamed hams?

Skinner: Yes. It is a term of local cant. 

Chalmers: Local to what place?

Skinner: Up north, in York.

Chalmers: How can this be so? For I was born

Within those ancient, moss-speck’d city walls,

That above the people rise immortal,

Marking of that region’s honour’d past,

Where emperors have sought to spend their days,

Eschewing all the luxury of Rome,

And mighty royals capp’d their golden crowns

Upon their noble heads whilst they did frame

That land as fit for England’s capital;

And there I dwelt throughout my younger span,

And never did I hear of steamed hams.

Skinner: O! This is never said within the walls,

But from the yeomen who without reside.

Chalmers: So it has to be, if it be so.

But I perceive the seasoning of these

To be alike to that which Krusty makes

At his own piehouse.

Skinner: Such can never be,

For, sir, this make of pie is anciently

Recorded in my family’s household books

As a receipt for Skinner’s own pork pie.

Chalmers: Yet named steamed hams?

Skinner: Ay that it is.

Chalmers: And thou declar’st them steamed hams, although,

Upon the pallid wheat and butter paste

It is attested of the toasted marks

That steamed hams as these are baker’s work?

Skinner: Alas! I see a mighty smudge of black

Which danceth from my kitchen through the door,

Alike Saloma, shedding sooty veils.

I beg your pardon, sir, I shall return.

Chalmers: With my leave, do so.

[Skinner withdraws and returns.]

Skinner: Alackaday!

The kitchen is engulf’d in roaring flame,

For neglected me the roast to wrench,

Though all ablaze, from out mine oven’s void;

’Tis now risen to a fearsome glow,

But I shall overskip the conflagration

Biding while till Chalmers doth away,

Lest such errors make me look a fool.

O, sir! Such a merry time was had!

We reveled in mirth and jollity,

But ay, alas, I wearily am spent.

Chalmers: Indeed, the hour is late. I should away.

But, look! O Lord! What happens in that room?

Skinner: It is nothing but a blazing star.

Chalmers: Fie, fie! A blazing star? Upon the Earth,

Upon your hearth, estated well beneath the firmament?

Skinner: Indeed.

Chalmers: Pray, let me witness.

Skinner: I will not,

For it should ill become a gentleman

If he be kitchened of lesser-than. 

[Exeunt.]

Actus Primus. Scoena Tertia.

[Enter Chalmers and Skinner. Agnes above.]

Skinner: Farewell to you, and may you have good e’en.

Chalmers: Adieu then, Seymour, till we meet again.

Agnes: Seymour! Hark! The house is all aflame!

Skinner: Nay, mother dear. ’Tis but a blazing star.

Chalmers: Certes, good Seymour, though thou art distinct

In singularity, declare I shall,

Thine hams are steamed passing past all fault.

Agnes: Help! O someone bring this blaze to halt!

[Exit Chalmers. Exeunt Skinner and Agnes.]

FINIS.