Making a city ham is a speedy process. “There’s a pig on Monday, and it’s in the store on Friday,” said Sam Edwards III, who is rebuilding his family’s Edwards Virginia Smokehouse, which burned to the ground in 2016. Other smokehouses have lent a hand, and his bone-in, spiral-cut hams are selling almost as well as the country hams the family is known for.

Spiral-cut hams comprise about 34 percent of all the ham sold in the United States, said Kevin Waetke, a vice president of the National Pork Board.

Shoppers spent about 2 percent more on spiral hams in 2018 than they did in 2017. But they were actually buying about 2 percent less ham. Prices went up, Mr. Waetke said, because America has been sending a lot of hams to Mexico and Canada, so there are fewer for the domestic market.

Still, as cooks have come to care more about the provenance of their pork, they have been willing to spend more on spiral-cut hams. And some producers of higher-quality, boutique hams realize that there is no shame in sending them out already sliced.

This year for the first time, White Oak Pastures in southern Georgia is selling spiral-cut hams from 450 of its Berkshire hogs. The animals are raised on pasture accredited by the Savory Institute, which is dedicated to regenerating grasslands. The hams are $12.60 per pound. (For comparison, Costco’s Kirkland brand hickory-smoked, spiral-cut ham was on sale last week for $1.99 per pound. A whole or half Honey Baked Ham sells for around $7.40 per pound.)