This “VIP Ham” is Very Important to New Orleans

The Greater New Orleans area is full of longtime family businesses. We know that because we at Joe Gambino’s Bakery are one of them! 

We love supporting other local businesses that have stood the test of time, and few have stood that test better than fifth generation New Orleans company, Chisesi Brothers Meat Packing Co.

The company originated at the start of the 20th century, when Philip Chisesi sold chickens, rabbits, ducks and turtles in the French Market. In 1878, Chisesi sailed to New Orleans from his unique Albanian enclave in Sicily. New Orleans, too, had an Albanese center at the time. By 1908, Chisesi opened a saloon and a grocery in the lower French Quarter, where many Sicilians were settling.

But this was just the beginning of the Chisesi family’s journey!

Making meat in New Orleans

Today, it’s ham that Chisesi Brothers is best known for, but that isn’t what started the company. Rather, in the early 1900s, Philip Chisesi focused on distributing a variety of groceries around the Crescent City and chicken was his most popular item. 

Chisesi’s great-grandson — also named Philip — said he remembers coming home from school and cutting up chickens for distribution in the middle of the French Quarter.

In 1953, the company decided to leave the Quarter for more modern facilities at the corner of North Galvez and Lapeyrouse, just down the street from Dooky Chase’s Restaurant. The building was an old ice house with thick brick walls where, in the days before household refrigeration, 100-pound blocks of ice were made. It was perfect for the Chisesi’s growing business, which increasingly required ample cold storage. And it was here that the company began to transform into the Chisesi Brothers meat company we know today.

That Galvez Street move took place at a time when the company was selling an increasing amount of pork products, including other businesses’ hams. By the 1950s, Philip’s father was tinkering around with the idea to smoke their own meats. A neighbor who lived in a trailer behind the warehouse showed the Chisesis how to smoke a ham in a wooden box with wood chips that Philip said could only smoke about six hams at a time.

The iconic Chisesi ham was born!

Philip said the family was also cutting steaks. Between the cutoffs from those steaks and the ham, there was quite a bit of leftover meat piling up the freezer. What to do with it all? The answer is why Chisesi Brothers is now in the sausage making business, as well.

Chisesi ham began to develop its teardrop shape in 1971, the same year Philip’s father died. To honor the loss of such a “very important person” in the family, they decided to call it the “V.I.P. Ham,” which is still the name many locals know the product by today. 

Old-school roots

Developing the ham’s familiar shape took some trial and error. A Chisesi ham consists of two boned-out pieces of trimmed ham. A skilled worker arranges these pieces together crosswise, then places them inside netting. They roll and spin the ham to orient the meat, pressing out the air pockets, and shaping it into its signature appearance before placing it on a rack heading toward the smoker. 

The family experimented with machines to shape the ham, but it never matched the quality they wanted. The result is that every ham is still made by hand.

As ham and house-made sausage joined a growing list of meat products that Chisesi distributed, the company bought additional adjacent so the increasingly elaborate smoking facilities had space to grow. Still it wasn’t enough room as the family was forced to unload trucks in the middle of a busy road. Finally, in 1978, the next generation of Chisesi moved to 2419 Julia Street, in the shadow of the new Superdome.

But Chisesi wasn’t the only ham game in town. For years, they had been in a rivalry with Schott’s, another local, family-run business that had been in operation since 1879. However, in the early 1980s, a fire at their facility just before the holidays made it impossible for Schott’s to fulfill their Christmas ham orders. 

When Chisesi stepped in to fill those orders, some customers said they were pleasantly surprised with what they tasted. Within two years, the Schott company sold the business, including its recipes, to Chisesi. Chisesi Brothers still distributes some of the Schott products including its popular chili meat. 

The 21st century has brought both successes and challenges for the company. During Hurricane Katrina, for example, Chisesi Brothers lost 2.5 Millions pounds of spoiled meat in a single day. Tasked with a major clean-up that even a USDA inspector refused to see, Philip told his sons Nick and Cody that, “The cavalry isn’t coming — we have to do this ourselves.”

That is exactly what they did. Through a Herculean effort, the factory was up and running in time to distribute hams for Thanksgiving that year. 

Nowadays, the factory is in Elmwood, near the Huey P. Long Bridge at 5221 Jefferson Highway. One employee has worked with the company for nearly 60 years! During all of this time the goal is still the same: to produce high quality food products that New Orleanians can be proud of.

Here at Joe Gambino’s Bakery, we can relate to that! And we hope to be saluting the great work of the Chisesi family for another 100 years!