Jamón Serrano - Taste the Signature Flavor of Spain

Crystal Chow 
Oh, goody, you received an invitation to a sumptuous dinner party or weekend stayover. Aside from what to wear, now you need to figure out a thoughtful hostess gift. Here are some edible presents that just might help score a repeat request for the pleasure of your company. 
 
A mini paella kit from La Tienda contains all the fine ingredients needed for this hearty dish except the cook's choice of fresh meat, seafood and vegetables. Perfect for the hostess who wants to savor a taste of Spain. Serves two. $49.95 at www.tienda.com.

Haute Stuff

<h3>In Jabugo, travelers can visit Ibérico pigs in the pasture and learn how to carve some of the world’s finest cured ham</h3>By David FarleyARACENA, Spain — “How do you like the ham?” asked Manolo Romero de la Ossa, the owner of Casas, a popular restaurant here in Andalusia.All week long around the village of Jabugo, my wife and I had been eating <a href="/bone-in-jamon-iberico-de-bellota">jamón Ibérico de bellota</a>, the sweet, nutty, salty and creamy product of black-hoofed, free-range pigs that consume a special diet.“It’s great,” I said. Then I mentioned just how much ham we’d been eating.“What does that matter?” Romero de la Ossa said, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “You’re in the ham capital of Spain, even the world, and when it’s this good, you can’t stop. You eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”He was right. To mistake cured Spanish jamón (pronounced “hahm-ohn”) with the packaged, sliced ham you find at your local supermarket would be like comparing a fast-food burger to a wagyu steak, or Pabst Blue Ribbon with a Czech bottle of Pilsner Urquell. Even Italian prosciutto is not in the same league.Jamón Ibérico de bellota is a whole other beast. For about three months out of the year, Iberian pigs graze on acorns (or bellotas in Spanish), giving the jamón a rich taste that some Spaniards have likened to a drug.Jabugo is synonymous with the highest-quality jamón in Spain — and, some would argue, the world. I came here because my Spanish friends would whisper in irreverent tones when anyone uttered the phrase “jamón de Jabugo.” I felt like I was let in on some culinary secret: the best cured ham on the planet comes from a village of about 2,200 people nestled in the mountains of southern Spain.<h3>Pasture tours and jamón museums</h3>Is there such a thing as pork tourism? There is in Jabugo.The town is so ham-centric that the main square is called Plaza del Jamón, and there is an array of bronze sculptures of jamón-cutters. There are also museums dedicated to Spanish jamón in Jabugo and Aracena.Jabugo boasts a handful of jamón producers. The most famous is Cinco Jotas. The company offers<a href="https://www.cincojotas.com/visit-cinco-jotas-cellar"> several services</a> for visitors to literally get their hands dirty and have their palates dazzled. I signed up for the full experience, including a visit to the oak tree-studded pastures to hang with the hogs, a tour of the 19th-century ham-curing cellars, a lesson in how to carve jamón like a pro, and, of course, a tasting.It all gave me a much better insight into how much time and effort it takes to nurture an unparalleled product, and why it’s so expensive. A leg of black-label jamón Ibérico can<a href="https://www.cincojotas.us/shop-online/cinco-jotas-acorn-fed-100x100-iberico-bone-in-ham.html?___store=us"> cost as much as $1,700</a>. Acorns are rich in fatty acids and nutrients. You could say they are a porcine superfood.Spain has a handful of main jamón-producing regions, including Salamanca, Extremadura, the Los Pedroches Valley and Jabugo. But not all jamón Ibérico is created equal.In 2014, the Spanish government created a color-coded system to inform consumers of the percentage of the pig’s Iberian ancestry. A white label, for example, means the breed of pig is at least 50 percent Iberian; it eats mostly fodder (a random mixture of grain, hay, and vegetables); and is not free range.On the other end is black label, meaning the pig is 100 percent Iberian (or pata negra), it feeds from November to February on acorns, and is free range. There are also dozens of strict regulations about weight, size and the amount of free-range space the pigs should have, among other factors. Only 6 percent of the jamón Ibérico produced in Spain gets a black label designation.Iberian pigs have fewer offspring than other breeds, produce less meat and take longer to mature. For those reasons, many ham producers in Spain crossbreed them. Cinco Jotas only uses 100 percent Iberian pigs, making it one of the few jamón-producing companies in Spain that gets the black label designation.<h3>What makes jamón de Jabugo so special</h3>People have been curing jamón in southwestern Spain for a very long time. Even the Romans recognized the area as particularly beneficial for the task of curing pork.In A.D. 77 Roman writer Pliny the Elder<a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D77"> wrote of Iberian pigs</a>, “There is no animal that affords a greater variety to the palate of the epicure; all the others have their own peculiar flavour, but the flesh of the hog has nearly fifty different flavours.” On Christopher Columbus’s second voyage, in 1493, his ships<a href="https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/12/19/inenglish/1482134474_543698.html"> were said to be loaded</a> with Ibérico pigs as they crossed the Atlantic.Until the late 19th century, ham production in Jabugo was small-scale, limited to a few small family-run slaughterhouses. It was only when a jamón-obsessed businessman, Rafael Sánchez Romero, recognized a growing demand for the high-quality ham from Jabugo that the product started to spread to cities like Seville and beyond. He<a href="https://www.jamonarium.com/en/blog/history-jabugo-ham-cinco-jotas-b197.html"> started Cinco Jotas</a> in 1879.In 1994, jamón de Jabugo got DOP status — Denominación de Origen Protegida (literally “Protected Designation of Origin”) — a European Union certification that ensures a certain product comes from a specific geographic zone. The zone in question here extends beyond Jabugo to 30 other villages in the surrounding area where the ham produced is officially “jamón de Jabugo.”“One of the most important factors in shaping the taste of jamón de Jabugo is the microclimate here,” said José Antonio Pavón, the Director General of DOP Jabugo, an the organization that maintains Jabugo’s DOP status. “We get 1,000 liters of rain here — that’s far more than any other ham-producing region in Spain.”To add to that, something called the<a href="https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/fohn-effect"> Foehn effect</a> — a meteorological term for what happens when there’s a warm, dry condition on one side of a mountain and a cold, wet condition on the other, resulting in extreme temperature change — is caused by the wind from the Atlantic Ocean hitting the high-altitude mountains in Jabugo.“The daytime temperature in summer can be at 105 degrees, and then at night it can go all the way down to 65 degrees,” said Maria Castro Bermúdez Coronel, the director of communications for Cinco Jotas. “This affects that taste, compared to other jamón-producing regions, in that the warm weather creates a strong flavor in the meat.”The pigs are slaughtered — or “sacrificed” as Spaniards prefer to say — when they’re around 22 months old. Then the back legs (called “jamón”) and front legs (called “paleta,” or shoulder) sit in salt for a few weeks (one day per kilogram).Next, they spend time in the drying process, hanging in a temperature-controlled room before being moved to a windowless cellar for a few years. The entire process can take up to five years before a leg of jamón is ready to be sliced and savored.<h3>How to get your hands on jamón Ibérico</h3>Look around your local supermarket — or pretty much any supermarket in the United States — and you likely will not find jamón Ibérico de bellota.It’s not particularly hard to find <a href="/serrano/all-serrano">jamón serrano</a>, the most commonly produced jamón in Spain, which is good but does not possess the “wow” factor compared to black-label jamón Ibérico de bellota. If you want it, you have to go to a specialty food shop, buy it online or, like me, come to the source.Antonio Cabrera, a sales manager at Covap, a jamón producer in Los Pedroches Valley near Córdoba, and the grandson of the company’s co-founder, said, “Italian culinary culture is so cemented in the United States, especially on the East Coast, that many people have a cultural attachment to prosciutto.”Jamón Ibérico was approved for import by the U.S. government only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/27/spain.usa">in 2005</a>, and its emergence in the United States — particularly the black-label variety — has been crawling at a Mediterranean pace. “We have some catching up to do,” he said.If you’re in Spain and you want to bring back some black-label jamón Ibérico de bellota (or other pork products, Spanish or otherwise), you might want to think twice: It’s illegal.However, there are plenty of ways to buy it online.For a 3-ounce packet of sliced black-label jamón Ibérico de bellota, expect to pay around $40. If you want to splurge and get your own leg, prices vary depending on the weight and if it’s the front leg or the heavier back leg.<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2024/04/16/spain-jamon-region-jabugo/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzEzMjQwMDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzE0NjIyMzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MTMyNDAwMDAsImp0aSI6ImMyNzk0N2JlLWNhZmQtNGM4OS1hMTIyLTBhNzM4YTg5ZWQ1OSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90cmF2ZWwvMjAyNC8wNC8xNi9zcGFpbi1qYW1vbi1yZWdpb24tamFidWdvLyJ9.YI8Ag76a0p2CUmaembTH5pTuUWtDL1GWxEzmeOYSFok">Read full article…</a>

See How Jamón Gets Made in the Heartland of Spanish Pork

This Spanish ham is some of the best that money can buy. Jackie Bryant To the untrained eye and palate, a ham is just a ham—usually, one entire pig leg or shoulder, sliced into short, rectangular, paper-thin sheets. But with so many types of ham on the market, it can be difficult to know which is the best and why. When it comes to Spanish ham, knowledge is power.&nbsp; So if you're looking to buy some of the best jamón, or Spanish ham, that money can buy, make sure you know what you're looking for.&nbsp; The different categories of jamón Understanding the distinctions among the different kinds of Spanish ham is a good starting point, as each type is carefully designated by law. <a href="/serrano/all-serrano">Jamón Serrano</a> is made from white pigs—usually Landrace or Duroc breeds, which have white hooves and are typically raised indoors and fed a mix of grains. The product is less fatty than Ibérico. <a href="/iberico/all-iberico">Jamón Ibérico</a> is made from farm-raised, usually crossbred Ibérico pigs that are raised indoors and fed hay. Jamón Ibérico Cebo de Campo is the next level above that and is made from crossbred free-range Ibérico pigs that are fed a mixture of acorns and hay. <a href="/jamon-iberico-de-bellota/all-iberico-de-bellota">Jamón Ibérico de Bellota</a>, finally, is the premier level—the type that has inspired cult-like following—that is made from free-range, black-hued and footed Ibérico pigs that subsist solely on acorns. Why acorns? The dehesas, or meadows, of western Spain serve a variety of economic and environmental purposes. The Holm and cork oak trees provide high-quality wood that is exported for the global wine industry (as well as for other purposes), and is the ideal canopy for the region’s flora and fauna. The acorns that come from the trees also happen to be the perfect food for free-range pigs: each pig can eat about 10 kilos of acorns a day and the result, after a long curing period of two to four years, creates a nutty, rich-tasting product that is high in monosaturated fat, high in oleic acid and low in saturated fat.&nbsp; What to Look For When possible, opt for hand-sliced over machine-sliced jamón, because master carvers slice in a way that properly distributes fat among the entire piece—something that cannot be replicated by a machine. Also, only buy ham that's been vacuum sealed. But there's more to it, of course. One thing to notice is that there are three colors, which range from bright red in the more well-cured areas, to pink, says Teresa de la Cierva, Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Gastronomy &amp; Vice-president of the Gastronomy Academy of Madrid. “White marbled fat deposits a sheen when the meat is exposed to room temperature and small white “crystals” denote low salinity and gradual, slow curing. Hints of pink shown in the muscle fiber indicate prolonged curing, along with the purity of the breed.” Then, there are the different cuts, many of which are not known outside of Spain. An Ibérico ham leg has four distinctive parts to it: the punta, babilla, maza and jarrete. Each has its own distinctive aroma, flavor and texture and, in southern and western Spain, can be paired with a different kind of Sherry, depending on whether it’s sweeter or drier, fatty or more fibrous. “The meat in the top third of the ham, the maza, is soft, juicy and unctuous. It melts in your hands,” de la Cierva says. “The babilla, or contramaza, which is near the bottom of the ham and jarrete, which comes from a small area next to the ankle, feature a more fibrous and firm-bodied consistency which increases the chewing time and enjoyment.” The jarrete is the rarest cut of all—it takes a significantly skilled carver to be able to extract it from around the bone. The hard-to-reach punta, at the tip of the ham, is a bit sweeter and significantly more marbled.<a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/news/jamon-iberico-where-buy">Read full article...</a>

How to Buy Jamón Ibérico: What to Look for and Where to Get It

Melissa Kravitz “Hey, how much do you think this bone-in leg of jamón iberico costs?” I ask my girlfriend, as I sit in our living room casually paging through the newest catalogue of … a Spanish specialty foods store that imports the premium ham from the Spanish regions of the Iberian Peninsula. This is a new game we play — jamón pricing — similar to the way couples may guess which property on House Hunters the bedraggled two-bedroom seekers settle for. Since our vacation in Spain last spring, we have become total ham nerds. As a recovering kosher vegetarian returning to Spain for my first time since embracing the omnivorous lifestyle, I made sure a visit to Barcelona’s Jamón Experience, a ham museum located directly across from the Boqueria, one of Europe’s most famous open-air markets, was on our itinerary. Pork has been an important protein source in the region even since Roman times, and the tradition of curing pork to turn it into different varieties of ham dates back just as long. In Spain today, it’s nearly impossible to avoid a shop, bar, restaurant or gift shop offering some type of the prized legs of cured meat. As someone who had previously spent a good chunk of time in Spain avoiding all things ham, I was eager to jump on the pig ship. Those who have traveled to Madrid or other parts of Spain may be familiar with the Museo del Jamón, a chain of delis that serves Spanish ham. Unlike Barcelona’s Jamón Experience, it’s not an educational institution. While the bright red sign and Jamón Experience’s inclusion on the city’s official tourist pass, Barcelona Card, may scream tacky traveler trap, passing up this opportunity to visit the Spain’s only ham museum seemed like a huge mistake. Upon purchasing our 19 euro tickets to gain admittance for a tour and tasting, I was nervous that this would, like the midtown Manhattan dancing sushi restaurant we’ve been to, be yet another cheesy tourist trap. Instead, we both became enraptured by the process of making Spanish ham, eating Spanish ham and pretty much everything Spanish ham-related. The experience starts in the dimly lit basement of the multi-floored modern building, where spotlights illuminate gold-coated ham hocks dangling like exquisitely tacky pork chandeliers from the ceiling. A small group of English-speakers (tours are also available in Spanish) are then corralled into a dark, nearly empty gallery, where a spotlight dramatically illuminates a few white tablecloth-covered tables with empty chairs. The setup looked as if it were primed for a high budget high school production of Death of a Salesman rather than a ham experience. As we lingered in the awkward setup, not knowing whether to sit or stand, restaurant sounds started playing over hidden speakers and a narrator started slowly reciting the joys of jamón iberico. The entire jamón experience, billed as “where Iberian ham becomes art,” started to make sense. Having visited Barcelona’s Museo Erótico on a previous trip (a drag Marilyn Monroe lured us in with free cava), this wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed this odd recreation of real life for the purpose of cultural education in a Spanish museum — and I was ready for it. The recorded guide’s voice ushered us through a series of rooms, where we learned about the special black pigs in the Iberian Peninsula who are fattened with acorns (bellotas) each autumn to become the premier class of ham hocks, otherwise known as jamón iberico de bellota. Video footage of this fattening season, called the montanera (or in some cases, the engorde — this tour is full of fun vocabulary), is enhanced with the delicate sound effects of the pigs snorting up the abundance of fallen acorns, a sound that’s hard to forget as you watch a masterfully trained jamón master slice a thin piece of cured pig leg. Still, despite the videos of cute animals and a glossing over of exactly how the pigs are slaughtered, the educational part of the tour left me more curious about what this special ham actually tastes like. Of course, the tour is set up to transition the museum portion into a seated tasting. After watching more video footage of the curing process (lots of salt!) and testing process (a man sniffs an animal bone inserted into the shrinking pig flesh to know when the jamones are ready) it was time to try a curated selection of Spanish hams. Upstairs, branded plates burnished multiple slices of hams of various fattiness, thickness, reddish hue and soon-to-be discovered scent and taste, all separated by a grid our tasting guide patiently led us through, encouraging us to sniff and taste the acorn flavors in the prized jamón iberico de bellota, the most expensive, and rarest type of jamón that can only be made from pigs who reach 160 kilograms (about 353 pounds) during the montanera (think foie gras, but a little more free range). The tasting guide poured everyone exactly one alcoholic beverage (a refill will cost you) as he chatted through the occasions certain hams would be eaten for — everyday lunch, a wedding reception, etc. — and helped us see why splurging on the de bellotas, just like a fine wine or artisanal peanut butter, would indeed make our time in Spain tastier. Like any good museum, the Jamón Experience boasts an impressive gift shop, nearly overflowing with porky treats, including whole ham legs. Sadly, these are illegal to bring back through U.S. customs. (You can, however, order cured ham back in the U.S. from certified importers.) While the entire Jamón Experience lasted under 90 minutes, our appreciation of jamón iberico de bellota will last a lifetime. As we traveled through Barcelona’s many neighborhoods, and then up through Zaragoza, Pamplona, San Sebastian and Bilbao, we kept an eye out for jamón iberico de bellota, served on sandwiches and charcuterie platters and stuffed in croquettes and sold at markets throughout the country. Our last morning, I was stuffing just one last jamón sandwich into my mouth before I had to say goodbye to the precious meat. Had we not embarked on the delightfully tawdry Jamón Experience, I sincerely doubt we would have fully appreciated the Spanish treasure of a cured meat. Nor would we spend our free time guessing the price of ham hocks. Pork lovers: If you’re going to Spain, and going to be inundated with Spanish hams wherever you look, the least you could do is learn a little bit about them.

A look inside Spain’s only ham museum — a worthy temple to the country’s most delicious export

By <a href="https://www.cigaraficionado.com/author/gregory-mottola">Gregory Mottola</a>If you've been underwhelmed after trying Spain's much-hyped <a href="/jamon-iberico-de-bellota">Jamon Iberico</a>, there's a reason: you probably weren't tasting the best. Banned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture until a decade ago, the luxury, free-range Iberian ham with the rich, nutty splendor was known here only by its reputation. What wasn't clear when the import floodgates opened was that it comes in several grades. Some are merely good. The utmost—those that exhibit a rare combination of breeding, feeding and curing—are exquisite and fetch prices of $190 a pound. To get the real deal you must learn to read the label or simply buy from brands like Cinco Jotas (aka 5J) that import only the top tier.Spain designates the best as black label. It starts with a purebred Iberian pig, called pata negra for its black hooves. Lesser grades use crossbred pigs that are more prolific and earlier to develop. Another difference is diet. Optimally, the pig feeds exclusively on fallen acorns as it roams the Andalusian oak forests during the last three months of its life. This is how it gets its oily, nutty character. Such pigs will be stamped bellota (Spanish for acorn). However, red label pigs (crossbreeds) also share that designation. Green label indicates crossbred pigs fed with a mix of acorns and grain. White label hams are crossbred and never eat a single acorn.Since 2010, the Spanish government has gotten much stricter with the labeling requirements of its Iberico hams. Manufacturers now have to specify the details of breeding and diet. Aging is also important. Ideally, these haughty hocks should spend three years in a curing facility.To enjoy Iberico ham you can find a restaurant that serves Cinco Jotas Iberico. More involved is buying and cutting the whole leg, but you'll also need <a href="/accessories/index">a ham holder, the right cutlery</a> and lessons on the proper technique. Besides, that's a lot of ham for one household. Better to find a purveyor that sells it by the slice. Cinco Jotas hams are available in <a href="/sliced-jamon-iberico-de-bellota">precut packets</a> from mail-order outfits which specialize in Spanish imports.Served at room temperature, each glistening piece should pretty much melt in your mouth. That's not an opinion, it's actually scientific fact. Acorns are high in oleic acid, giving the pig fat not only a sublime taste, but a low melting point that results in a true porcine epiphany.

The Truth About Jamon Iberico

Megy Karydes It’s a beloved taste throughout Spain, yet one of the world’s finest and most expensive delicacies is not easily accessible in the United States: Iberico ham. Once prohibited from being imported into the country, 100% Iberico jamon now can be found only in select gourmet retailers and a handful of fine restaurants. FERMIN Iberico ham first brought it to the U.S. market in 2007, quickly followed by Cinco Jotas.&nbsp; To appreciate why Iberico jamon is so valued, one must understand the conditions in which it’s produced. First, it is nearly impossible to recreate the complex weather conditions found in Jabugo, where the ancient breed of black pig, found only in Spain, roams wild on two to four acres each. An herbivore, it only feeds on herbs, vegetables and primarily acorn. Lots of acorn. In fact, the pig’s acorn-rich diet is what makes Iberico ham stand out from other types of ham and helps give it its unique and nutty flavor. Then there is the time-consuming process to make it into the final product. The ham is laid in sea salt for several days, removed, cleaned off and cured before it’s placed into an underground cave for two and a half to three and a half years. It’s not done yet. The maestro jamonero comes in for quality control and to give the final approval that it’s ready for market. The fact that Iberico ham is so rare and takes so much time to prepare is part of the reason that its cost rivals that of other delicacies like caviar. The other reason was that import regulations restricted it from making its way across the pond and into the United States until 2007. Being from Portugal, ATRIO Executive Chef Antonio Cardoso was no stranger to Iberico ham so he was especially excited when the opportunity presented itself to introduce Cinco Jotas 100% Iberico ham to his guests as an off-the-menu option. At ATRIO, Conrad New York hotel’s on-property restaurant, Cardoso personally comes out to carve and serve the Iberico ham right at his guests’ table. “We are serving it plain, with grilled Tuscan bread, or as a complement to some of our current spring dishes, for example, our Local Burrata,” says Cardoso. “ATRIO is the perfect restaurant to feature Cinco Jotas as we are not only able to complement it with some of our great wines but it blends very well with the Mediterranean cuisine.” He recommends pairing Iberico ham with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. ATRIO joins the ranks of L’Atelier Joel Robuchon in Paris, Da Dong Roast Duck in Beijing and La Marée in Moscow now offering Spain’s national treasure but be sure to ask for it since you won’t find it on the menu. And, like wine is best after you open the bottle, Iberica ham tastes best when enjoyed as soon as it’s sliced.<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/megykarydes/2015/04/16/spanish-iberico-ham-atrio-new-york/">Read full article...</a>

Ibérico Ham Is Slowly Making Its Way Stateside

Erica Marcus What was the best thing you ate in Spain? I'm just back from a vacation that took me to Tarragona, Valencia and Barcelona in Spain and I ate very, very well -- sea bass that had been swimming in the Mediterranean hours before being grilled, true paella Valenciana cooked over a wood fire. But I think the culinary highlight was the parade of terrific ham sandwiches. In Spain, it seems, you cannot get a bad ham sandwich. At the Autogrills that punctuate the superhighways, at museum cafes, at snack bars, at tourist sites. It's nothing but great ham sandwiches made without mayo, mustard, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes or cheese. Just good ham and good, crusty rolls. To understand what makes Spanish ham so great, you need to understand some ham terminology. Strictly speaking, a ham is the hind leg of a pig. Usually, however, the term refers to a cured hind leg. To cure, in culinary terms, is to preserve, and there are two major ways to preserve ham -- with salt and with smoke. Dry-cured hams are preserved by coating them with salt and aging them until the meat dries out, anywhere from one to three years. The most common dry-cured hams in America are Prosciutto di Parma and Prosciutto di San Daniele imported from Italy.The Spanish equivalent of prosciutto is jamón serrano. But then Spain kicks it up a notch. Jamón Ibérico is made in a similar fashion but using an ancient breed native to the Iberian peninsula, the pata-negra (black-footed) pig. The pinnacle of Spanish ham is Jamón Ibérico de Bellota, which is made from pata-negra pigs that have ranged free in the oak woods along the border between Spain and Portugal, eating their fill of acorns.<a href="http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/columnists/erica-marcus/ham-sandwiches-the-best-thing-to-eat-in-spain-1.7864074">Read full article...</a>

Ham Sandwiches: The Best Thing to Eat in Spain

Kerry Acker Not all pork products are created equal. Just imagine for a moment that money was no object, that no supernal slice of lavishly marbled ham or haute hunk of succulent pork was too high-end or high-falutin' for your budget. Here, our mini guide to some of the finest, most exclusive, pork, ham, and bacon in the world. Jamon Iberico de Bellota Celebrated El Bulli chef Ferran Adria once said of this traditionally cured Spanish ham, "Iberian pork meat is extraordinary. There's nothing like it elsewhere in the world. There's a great difference between a superior ham and all the rest." Raised along the Spain/Portugal border, the pata negra (black-hooved) pig roams free-range through old-growth oak forests, dining on herbs, grass, and, most significantly, acorns (bellota means "acorn"), resulting in an intensely flavored, distinctly nutty, and richly marbled meat unparalleled in the ham universe.<a href="http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2014/02/pork-for-the-one-percent-the-best-pork-and-ham-in-the-world.html">Read full article...</a>

The One-Percenter's Guide to Pork: The Best Pork, Ham, and Bacon in the World

Caroline J. Beck “Just let it melt on your tongue,” Jose Martinez-Valero instructed. “It will dissolve into pure flavor.” I placed the tiniest sliver of jamón Ibérico de bellota in my mouth and waited. The finely marbled fat melted like silk, but the finish was remarkably pure, strangely akin to a classic palate cleanser. As I positioned myself to snare another sample in the elbow-room frenzy of the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference at Napa, California, Martinez-Valero hit me with an even bigger surprise. “This fat is just like the very best olive oil, it’s monounsaturated. It comes from a breed of Spanish pig we call the four-legged olive tree,” he said. And suddenly I understood why the mouthfeel was so familiar. With years of olive oil tasting under my belt, it was easy to recognize the difference between greasy, mouth-coating fat and this high-quality clean finish. Jamón Ibérico de bellota is familiar to food cognoscenti as the cured form of this extraordinary animal. At prices north of $1,000 for a single ham, it is not widely available in restaurants or markets. But those who can afford it will go to great lengths to find a reputable source, because it is considered one of the finest foods in the world.&nbsp; At the heart of its difference is that purebred Ibérico pork represents a very old-world approach to one of the tenets of today’s cuisine: a sustainable, simple focus on pure flavor. But like high-quality extra virgin olive oil, purebred Ibérico pork is under siege from unscrupulous distributors who pass off crossbred meats as purebred, elitist pricing and a disappearing ecosystem (needed to support the swine’s unusual eating habits). The species has been on endangered or at-risk lists for years, a dwindling breed supported by a handful of dedicated producers on a lifelong mission to avoid extinction — of the pig, its pastureland and their very livelihoods. Martinez-Valero represents Ibérico Fresco, one of few Spanish distributors of 100% purebred, acorn-fed fresh Ibérico meat in the United States. Over the din of pork belly- and backfat-crazed chefs at the CIA‘s annual event, he spoke passionately about the plight of this pig and its unique grazing land, the dehesa (forest) of the Iberian peninsula in Spain. “It is the very definition of sustainable agriculture. The man takes care of the forest, the forest takes care of the pig, and the pig takes care of the man,” explained Martinez-Valero. Raising Ibérico pigs is an expensive labor of love Ibérico pigs are not particularly pretty, galloping along with long legs supporting a chunky body. They are best identified by their distinctive black hooves, hence the Spanish name, pata negra. There are many different breeds of Ibérico pigs, ranging from the productive, big Torbiscal to the delicate Entrepelado, but they all have certain traits in common that strain any producer’s pocketbook. Those include litters half the size of crossbreds, production cycles that are three times as long, and particularly expensive eating habits. In contrast to the ordeals of pigs jammed into cramped pens and pumped full of antibiotics seen in television news reports on the pork industry, the lives of purebred Ibérico pigs seem like a scene straight out of a fairy tale. By Spanish law, truly purebred (genetically 100%) Ibérico pigs are required to attain at least 40% of their weight grazing exclusively on holm oak acorns during the montanera, or period of fattening between October and January. Each pig is provided 2 hectares (about 5 acres) of personal space to reach its best weight. The high oleic acid content of the acorns and the genetic makeup of the Ibérico help convert the pig’s fat into its distinctive monounsaturated marbling. “It’s a marvel, a machine for making healthy meat. It’s perfection,” said Lucia Maesso Corral, president of Aeceriber, the Iberian Pig Breeders Association. She represents purebred producers who are fighting an uphill battle against lesser quality, far less expensive crossbred options that are allowed to take the name “Ibérico.” But their passion for truth-in-labeling and authentic, quality production is palpable. Without question, the better-known cured ham version is amazing. But one taste of the fresh meat they now call “the other red meat” and you will understand the depth of these producers’ dedication. For a dinner party of two, I sautéed a secreto of carne de cerdo ibérico de bellota (acorn-fed Ibérico pork shoulder skirt) for no more than two minutes per side, classically medium rare with a deep pink in the center, and sliced it like flank steak. Without exaggeration, it may well be the best meat I’ve ever eaten: succulent, sweet, almost nutty. Good enough that we didn’t have the discipline to stop, finishing off the entire cut with no regrets.

Ibérico Pork, The Extra Virgin Olive Oil Of Meats

Now we can get Spain's most swooned-over pork stateside—and know it's the real thing Katy McLaughlin WHEN SPAIN'S MYTHICAL Iberian ham—aka jamón ibérico—was first imported to the U.S., in 2007, it was heralded as the best in the world. Turns out, in spite of the fanfare and sky-high prices, much of what was then labeled ibérico wasn't…entirely. Now, more and better hams are coming to the U.S. market, prices have dropped and companies are specifying pedigree in preparation for upcoming legislation in Spain that will require them to do so. The world's best pork is finally getting a stateside debut we can applaud unreservedly. Ibérico is a stupendously umami-rich, silken ham that leaves Italian prosciutto and Spain's equivalent, jamón serrano, in the dust; fresh meat from ibérico pigs is juicy as rib eye and tender as filet mignon. In Spain, an acorn-fed ibérico ham on the table is the ultimate status symbol. But for all its exquisiteness, the ibérico tradition has been beset by the same boom-and-bust syndrome, and accusations of fraud, that have plagued Spain recently. To understand, one must first go back thousands of years to Phoenician times, when black-hooved pigs (another name for the breed is pata negra, or black hoof) were introduced to an oak-grove ecosystem in southwestern Spain known as the dehesa. Pigs thrived there, gorging on acorns for months prior to slaughter. Cured hams and fresh meat from these pigs, at first a regional specialty, became, over the centuries, Spain's most prized national delicacy. Around the turn of the millennium, Spain experienced an economic boom and an unparalleled rise in the global reputation of its cuisine. Both trends set off a revolution in the artisanal ibérico sector. A 2001 law allowed producers to crossbreed ibéricos with heartier, more productive Duroc pigs and still label the result "ibérico." This led to intensive farming in which crossbred pigs live in confinement, eating grain, and a huge increase in "ibérico" populations since 2000. Soon, ibérico became akin to caviar, sold internationally with a mind-boggling array of quality classifications and plenty of temptation to fudge the provenance. Today, just 6% of Iberian pigs are purebreds, according to Spanish government figures. The vast majority of what is sold as ibérico in Spain comes from crossbreeds raised in confinement, a fact that has prompted outrage there. Though U.S. retailers have focused on high-end, ostensibly pure product, they say the murkiness of the Spanish market has meant they haven't always been sure ibéricos are what they claim to be. Charles Passy joins Lunch Break with a look at Iberico ham from Spain. The top of the line ham costs around $1,200, but with all the special carving utensils it can add up to $3,000.&nbsp; Oversupply—due to increase in production and low consumer demand amid Spain's economic crisis—has brought several new brands to the U.S. and pushed prices down by 20% to 30% since last year. Lighthouse Trade began importing fresh meat from purebred ibéricos, under the brand Ibérico Fresco, two years ago, and plans to import cured meats by the end of the month. "We are trying to get people to think of ibérico as what it really is," said Lighthouse president José Ignacio Martínez-Valero, "one of the jewels of Spanish cuisine." High-end chefs across the U.S. have already begun to embrace it as such. The Off Duty Spring 50 Off Duty's spring issue features 50 fresh ideas to kick-start the season, from bright, slim-cut suits and luxe laptop totes to zesty radish recipes and a five-step plan to unlock the power of your fitness-tracking gadgets. Brands like Peregrino, Cinco Jotas and Ibérico Fresco are ahead of the curve, but soon all companies will have to be equally clear about their pigs' provenance. Spain's new regulations, expected to pass by June, will require labels to list percentage of ibérico genetics in the breed. Imagery of the dehesa can't appear on the package if the pig wasn't raised there. Experts quibble over how big a part pedigree plays. For Mr. Martínez-Valero, it's a "night-and-day" difference; … other factors, like feed and curing, are key. Aaron Fuchs, an importer of fresh ibérico meat from Fermín, a producer that uses purebreds and 75% ibérico crosses, said that "both types have a role in the market," because crossbred, grain-fed meat can cost significantly less. More ibérico genetics, however, mean more nutty, meltable fat in the result, Mr. Fuchs said. Steve Benjamin, executive chef at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, said he recently switched from crossbred ibérico ham to purebred. He finds it softer, less salty, with a distinctive acorn flavor. "It's the best ham in the U.S.," he said. UNDERSTANDING IBÉRICO Labels are increasingly specifying how pure the pigs are, in advance of laws that will require them to do so. The pig's diet, where it was raised, the cut and the cure also significantly impact flavor. 100% Ibérico de Bellota (Acorn-Fed) The king of Iberian pork, from a purebred pig that lives its entire life in the oak groves of the dehesa, in southwestern Spain. In the last three months of its life, it grazes almost exclusively on foraged acorns. Its silky fat is full of omega-3s; it is umami-rich and deeply flavorful.&nbsp; Ibérico de Cebo de Campo (Free-Range and Grain-Fed) From a crossbreed, usually 75% ibérico. This pig ranges freely, feeds on grain and may also do some grazing, including on acorns. When the new labeling laws take effect, producers will have to specify the ibérico percentage in the breed.&nbsp; Fresh Ibérico (Acorn-Fed and Grain-Fed) Fresh, uncured meat from ibérico pigs is also exquisite: extremely flavorful and tender, with luscious, meltable fat. Add salt and pepper, sear quickly and serve fairly rare.&nbsp; Paleta Ibérica Hams made from the front legs of the pig, which are smaller and slightly stronger in flavor.&nbsp; Other Cured Ibérico Ibérico meat, both acorn- and grain-fed, is made into a variety of cold cuts, such as lomo, which is cured loin; chorizo, a paprika sausage; and salchichon, similar to salami.&nbsp; A version of this article appeared April 6, 2013, on page D11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: JamónItUp, Legitimately.<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324557804578377214071453672.html#articleTabs%3Darticle">Read full article...</a>

Jamón It Up, Legitimately

The BA Gift Guide (#3 of 9) Start with a world-class cured ham, add a sharp knife for easy slicing, and pretty soon your party will rival the most popular tapas bar in Spain. 1. Get a Leg Up&nbsp; Serving a whole bone-in ham may seem ambitious, but trust us: You'll be a hero to your meat-eating friends--at least 30 of them! American country ham and prosciutto are great, but we're partial to the Spanish variety. 2. Take a Stand&nbsp; You'll need a proper wooden stand like this one to anchor the leg for slicing. In the event you have leftovers, store the ham in its holder in a cool, dry place for several weeks. Here's how: Cover ham with a kitchen towel or cheesecloth. Wipe off any mold with a cloth dipped in vegetable oil.&nbsp; 3. Slice it Right&nbsp; Arm yourself with the right knife--and a little slicing know-how. The ideal blade is sharp, thin, and flexible. Unlike with prosciutto, you want to cut Spanish ham in small, rectangular pieces. 4. My Sherry, Amor&nbsp; Ham and Sherry are made for each other. Forget the sweet stuff and open a bone-dry bottle that cuts through the salty richness of the pork fat.&nbsp;Call in the Extras&nbsp; "Take a tip from tapas bars and pair the ham with Spanish goodies like Manchego cheese and olives. It's all you need for an unforgettable centerpiece with minimal effort." --Chef Jose Garces, Amada, Philadelphia

A New Take on the Holiday Ham

Owen Dugan Jamón Ibérico is a magical name among ham lovers. It is uniquely Spanish, based primarily on the Ibérico breed of pig (also known as pata negra) used to make it, as well as on feeding and curing techniques. It's a must-have for food lovers, and there was fanfare when it became available in the United States five years ago. Now there is reason to rejoice once more. The brand Cinco Jotas ("five j's"), owned by the Osborne wine family, has long been considered a benchmark in Spain and is now available here.&nbsp; The pigs are raised in Jabugo, a town in southwest Spain near the Portuguese border. The climate is believed to be perfect for raising the pigs, and for the acorns responsible for the hams' flavor. Most important of all, however, is the purity of the breed. The producers ensure that the pigs are 100 percent Ibérico; this distinction is considerable because a pig need only be 75 percent to get the storied label. All of these factors conspire to deliver the best Ibérico legally available in this country. The meat is rosy and the fat shiny. It has nutty and complex aromas and is simultaneously earthy and tangy on the palate. The flavors persist long after. This is a must-try for ham lovers. Pour a sherry if you want to pretend you're in Spain, but a really great sparkling wine is better.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.winespectator.com/magazine/show/id/46895">Read full article...</a>

Gold-Standard Jamón

Jamón Ibérico de Bellota Adam Baer Bacon-of-the month clubs; pork belly at corner bistros. It's never been a finer time for pig-loving gourmands, even if some say the "bacon revolution" is over. Luckily, a few years ago, stateside devotees of Spanish delicacies finally received a gift that they have desired for centuries: jamón ibérico de bellota. The rarest form of Spain's best cured ham, bellota ("acorn," in Spanish), which is oak-y in color, complex in flavor, and lined with silky fat, comes from the acorn-fed, black-footed pigs whose ancestors have roamed the Iberian peninsula's oak-tree pastures since pre-Roman times. It's so good we only blink a few times when we see this stuff's $180-per-pound price, and we often prefer it to Parma prosciutto, at least on special occasions. How'd it make its way to our tables? In 1995, Spanish company Embutidos Fermín finally built a slaughterhouse to meet tough USDA specs, and the first marbleized, three-year-aged bellotas hit our shores around the year-end holidays in 2008. Since then, the jamón's become more popular in high-end Spanish restaurants, but it remains under the radar, especially for the 99 percent. "Think of it as a luxury, like caviar," says tapas godfather Jose Andres, who serves the product on hollow "air bread" at his jamón bar in Beverly Hills's The Bazaar at the SLS Hotel. "Initially, people didn't think there was interest," Andres adds. "Plus this jamón requires an investment of time and money to open new markets." And to meet U.S. import requirements. "Let the pure flavors speak for themselves," says Andres. “Thinly sliced on its own, it's perfect. Or, combine it with another luxury, like caviar, rolling the ham into a caviar cigar. Ideal surf and turf.”<a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/food-drink/recipes/the-new-prosciutto-20120531">Read full article...</a>

Spain's Luxury Ham

Cured meats are not really a big part of our culinary history in the U.S., but they're quickly making their way into our high-end restaurants and supermarkets. And we should be thankful for this meat migration. These meats, Europe's answer to the cold cut, are rich and savory, complex and refined in flavor. European cured meats have been processed the same way for hundreds of years -- which means they've been perfected. The curing process is different for each type of meat, but it generally involves washing and salting the meat, and hanging it to dry. This process will take at least several months, and can even take a couple of years. And while many European cured meats are still made the old fashioned way, some of them have changed with the times (which is not always a good thing). This means that nitrates, nitrites and sodium, which are pumped and loaded in most American deli meats, can unfortunately often be found in many of these cured meats. In Europe (particularly in Spain, Italy and France), cured meats are commonly served as tapas, part of an antipasto plate, or at an aperitif, though they also find their way into recipes. These deli meats can make a simple pasta dish exciting or make a green salad feel more substantial -- essentially, they can make almost any dish feel like a satisfying meal. That's why cured meats are the perfect answer for a quick dinner. If you find yourself with a lack of time, but some prosciutto on hand, you've pretty much got dinner ready. You can serve it with cheese, bread and a salad. Add it to pasta or eggs. Whatever you can throw together can be made better with the addition of cured meats. There are a wide variety of meats to choose from too -- guaranteeing that you'll never tire of them. Serrano ham (or Jamon Serrano) is a Spanish dry-cured ham. It's very similar to Italian prosciutto (and the French jambon de Bayonne). The difference is that serrano ham is normally made from a specific breed of pig -- Landrace breed of white pig. Iberico ham is processed in the same way as serrano ham and prosciutto, but its name is given based on the pig it comes from -- the Iberico pigs. This ham comes from either acorn, pastor or Compound-fed Iberico pigs.<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/cured-meats-defined_n_1417777.html#s860651&amp;title=Serrano_Ham">Read full article...</a>

Cured Meats: The Difference Between Prosciutto, Jamon Iberico And More

Florence Fabricant The top Spanish ham comes from purebred black-footed Ibérico pigs that feed on wild acorns. Now, for the first time, it is available in the United States. The brand with the most cachet is 5 Jotas, in business for more than 100 years. It took four years to get final approval from federal agencies. At present, the front-leg ham, called the paleta, above, is available. The hind legs, which take longer to cure, will be available in a few months. Slices of 5 Jotas are silky and rosy, with no sign of drying, and a flavor that’s irresistibly nutty-sweet, with succulent fat. Dehesa, another, less expensive brand — which says its hams are also from purebred Ibérico pigs, and are raised by members of Covap, a cooperative — will reach American stores in about two weeks. A preview sample of the Dehesa paleta was somewhat deeper in color than the 5 Jotas, but was also nut-sweet, satin-textured and mellow.<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/dining/top-spanish-ham-makes-it-to-the-united-states.html?_r=2&amp;ref=dining">Read full article...</a>

Top Spanish Ham, Now Found in the United States

Jabugo ham coming to the U.S. Janet Mendel, Special to the Los Angeles Times Reporting from Jabugo, Andalusia, Spain — Walking into the central plaza of the small town of Jabugo, you breathe in the aroma of ibérico ham, a sweet-nutty smell so intense it's as if it emanates from the very walls of the houses. This is the source — where ibérico pigs roam through forests of wild oak and scrabble for acorns and where their meat is converted into what many have declared the best ham in the world. Jabugo, a town nestled in the Sierra de Aracena in southwestern Andalusia, is a name with almost mythic meaning, far out of proportion to the town's size. That's because Jabugo is synonymous with great ham. In a region where every little town seems to have a few butcher shops selling ibérico ham, those from Jabugo stand out. And for the first time, that ham will be available in the United States before the end of the year. The town is famous for its hams primarily because of the Sánchez Romero Carvajal company, established there in 1879 and now owned by the multinational Osborne Group, makers of fine sherry. The company's hams with the 5J or "Cinco Jotas" label will be available in the United States. The first to arrive probably will be paletas, or shoulder hams from the front legs, because they require a shorter curing period than hams from the rear legs. Regular hams will follow, and the anticipation is growing already. Ibérico pigs from outside Jabugo were first imported into the United States in 2008, all from the slaughterhouse and curing sheds of Fermin, still the only Spanish company to meet U.S. regulations for meat slaughtering. Now Sánchez Romero Carvajal is partnering with Fermin so that the prestigious Jabugo hams with the 5J brand can be processed through that plant. Ham lovers quickly snatched up those first ibéricos despite starting prices of more than $1,400 for a 16-pound whole, bone-in ham. The first Jabugo hams will go even higher. One website already advertises a pre-order special of $1,795 for a 5J ham. Ibérico designates a breed of pig — more about that later. The next important bit of label lingo is bellota, which means "acorn," and it is applied only to hams made from free-range ibérico pigs that were fattened on acorns. Ibérico bellota hams are the crème de la crème, and those from Jabugo are the most treasured of all. Ibérico-breed pigs, descended from the wild boar that once roamed Mediterranean lands, are the color of the dark stones that are stacked into low walls dividing up pastures. Many — but not all — have black hoofs, thus the popular name, pata negra, or "black foot." They are built like barrels on slim legs. Big ears tip forward like a baseball cap to shade their eyes from fierce sun. They have long snouts, the better for rooting, and slim legs and ankles, the better for foraging over distances. What distinguishes this breed from regular porkers (such as Large White, Landrace and Duroc) is that they are very slow to mature, never reaching the size of hogs destined to be pork chops. The ibérico breed, adapted to its habitat, has the unusual characteristic of storing fat marbled within the muscle, rather than wrapped around the outside. This makes it less profitable as a meat producer but makes for superior ham, as the fat is essential to its flavor. The breed might have disappeared had it not been so well adapted to its rustic habitat, providing the people of the region a sustainable rural culture based around the pig. The dehesa, where the ibérico originates, is a unique ecosystem of rolling meadowland interspersed with stands of wild holm and cork oak that exists in the western reaches of Spain. From October to February — the fattening period called the montanera — the pigs range freely through the dehesa, feeding on fallen acorns, grass, roots, bulbs, herbs. Each hog eats about 18 pounds of acorns every day, doubling its weight during the three- to four-month period before slaughter. A pig needs 15 pounds of acorns to gain 1 pound of weight. The pigs are able to crack the acorns, discarding the shells, to get at the kernel. The acorns are rich in oleic acid, the same found in olive oil, which makes the hams high in monounsaturated fat. That's why acorn-fattened ibérico pigs are sometimes called an "olive tree on four legs." At the end of the montanera, when the pigs reach optimum weight of 350 to 400 pounds at 12 to 18 months of age, they are trucked to a matadero, or slaughterhouse and processing plant. Butchers carve off the hams (hind legs) and paletas (front legs), both of which are cured. They separate enormous slabs of fat, which will be melted down to lard. The belly bacon, panceta, is salted down for keeping. Workers separate other parts to be sold as fresh meat or be ground up for sausage. (Ibérico sausages also are available in the U.S.) The hams are then sent to expert perfiladores, men who sculpt the hams, removing skin and all but about 1 inch of fat covering. Hams are incised with a long V, while paletas are marked with a U. Hoofs are kept intact, except for those being exported to the United States. Next, the hams and paletas are packed, one by one, in sea salt (with a very small amount of nitrate and nitrite, used in almost all hams and sausages, to prevent bacterial growth and oxidation) where they stay 10 to 12 days, depending on their weight. The hams then are brushed free of salt and washed in clear water. They spend about 45 days in a cold locker, where the temperature is very gradually raised and the humidity lowered. This controlled stabilization period allows the hams to be processed with less time in salt than in bygone days, when the drying process was dependent on the seasonal change from winter to spring weather. Then the hams are hung, one by one, in a secadero, or drying hall, situated high in the eaves of the processing plants. Slatted shutters keep out the sun and let in air. Hams hang there throughout the summer, "sweating" during hot weather as the unsaturated fat liquefies slightly, bathing the meat in the nutty flavor derived from the acorn diet. Enzymes begin the process of turning meat into cured ham. At the end of the summer the hams are transferred to the bodega, a dim cellar with thick walls where humidity encourages the growth of flor, a mold that contributes to the curing process. Like fine wine and cheese, hams mature and develop flavor and complex bouquet during this aging process that lasts 12 months or more. The whole process takes 21/2 to three years. During that time, the leg of pork loses almost a third of its weight. In Spain, ibérico ham is served on its own, the better to appreciate its aroma, flavor and texture. Plain bread or toast with olive oil may accompany the ham, which is cut in translucently thin slices. Each slice has a rim of fat and is streaked with fat. The flesh is rosy-red, the fat creamy white. There's a reason for slicing it thinly, says Miguel Ullibarri, former director of Real Ibérico, a consortium of ibérico ham producers, and now a director of A Taste of Spain, a tour company specializing in food and wine tours. "If you put a thick piece in your mouth, the instinct is to immediately start chewing. You should pick up the ham with your fingers to warm it slightly, then allow the ham to temper on the tongue. The fat begins to melt, liberating the aroma and flavor." Once warmed on the tongue and gently chewed, the ham nearly melts, flooding the mouth and nose with flavor. It is the most umami of foods. It has "mouth-feel," succulence, aroma and flavor on the tongue, plus that special quality that comes as taste and aroma mingle. It is sweet, nutty, subtly earthy. Amazingly, unsalty. Maybe even better than the best ham in the world.<a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-jabugo-ham-20101007,0,1283085.story">Read full article...</a>

It's Hog Heaven for Pork Lovers

Gregory Mottola Tell a proud Italian, or even a Virginian for that matter, that the most noble dry-cured hams in the world actually come from Spain, and heated disputes are sure to follow. It won't matter that each Spanish Iberico pig is allotted four acres to leisurely forage on acorns in a protected Andalusian oak tree forest. Nor would it make any difference to discuss the ancient lineage of the black Iberian pig. The most convincing argument, of course, would be to eat it. Because of the acorn diet, Iberico ham is high in oleic acid, which is the same healthy fat found in olive oil. Not only do the acorns give the meat an uncommonly resonant nuttiness, but the marbled fat within the shoulder ends up with a relatively low melting point, so the sublime ham melts in your mouth the way no other ham will.&nbsp; Up until 2005, however, Iberico ham was an embargoed commodity, as illegal as Cuban cigars. None of Spain's slaughterhouses met USDA standards so Iberico ham was either smuggled in, or you ate it elsewhere. Then Spanish concern Fermin rose to the challenge of building a facility that passed American muster and Uncle Sam eventually approved. Being a dry-cured product, Iberico ham is aged up to three years, so the U.S.-approved 2005 debut slaughter meant that no hams would be ready until 2008. And when these holy hocks finally started coming in with the traditional black hooves still attached, the USDA deemed the trotters to be unsanitary, so a law now requires Spain to cut off the hooves before exportation-a centuries-old tradition put to an end. Nevertheless, it's still very expensive. The highest grade Iberico ham, known as Jamón Iberico de Bellota (Spanish for acorn) can cost up to $140 per pound. Bellota level pigs spend their final feeding stage blissfully gorging themselves on nothing but fallen acorns and woodland grasses. After slaughter, the shoulder cures for 36 months. The less expensive Recebo level Iberico ham comes from pigs whose final diets are 85 percent acorns, 15 percent commercial feed. Recebo ham cures for 24 months and runs about $90 per pound. Lower grades of Iberico exist as well. Keep in mind that Iberico ham is not the more common Serrano ham. Beware of restaurants and purveyors trying to pass one off for the other. This pitfall can be easily avoided if you stick to trusted distributors.&nbsp;A word of caution: don't try slicing the stuff yourself. The leg requires not only a ham holder, but special cutlery and even more specialized training. Ideally, the ham should be sliced into diaphanous ribbons, not hacked into jerky. Cutting it improperly and consuming it in thick pieces would be a culinary travesty and a waste of money.<a href="http://www.cigaraficionado.com/webfeatures/show/id/15491">Read full article...</a>

Good Life Guide - Iberico Ham

Andreas Viestad When it comes to the prized bellota ham from Spain, it is easy to understand why everyone talks about the nuts. As you approach Huelva, the Andalusian province most famous for those air-cured hams, the citrus groves of the semi-arid flatlands around Seville give way to oak-covered hills and mountains. Acorns, a staple in the menu of the local pigs, are said to be the secret behind the ham from the Iberian black-footed pigs, or pata negra, which many consider the best ham in the world.&nbsp; The nuts are everywhere. They're in the name: Bellota means acorn. They're in the brochures advertising the product, on the labels that hang on the hams (which, unlike others, are sold with the hoof attached) and of course in the pasturelands in Huelva and the other bellota-producing areas of southwestern Spain. Bellota ham is a relative newcomer to the American market, first imported here through a partnership involving chef-restaurateur José Andrés, and it is less marketable and much more expensive than such hams as Spanish serrano and Italian prosciutto di Parma. But it is all the more loved, by chefs and well-heeled food lovers alike. The bellota (or jamon iberico de bellota) does not lend itself to machine slicing; it should be served in smaller, slightly thicker slices. And it should be eaten within a few hours of slicing, so it is less suitable for convenient supermarket packaging. But what you get is truly unique: a ham that melts in your mouth, with a full, yet mild, almost cheesy character and a distinct nutty flavor. It is not really used in cooking; instead, the sliced pieces are served at the beginning of the meal and in some cases as the finishing garnish in dishes such as Spanish eggs. The flavor is what most people are referring to when they talk about the bellota, and the general assumption is that you taste the acorns. That is wishful thinking more than anything else, a misleading myth that has made it impossible for other ham producers to duplicate the bellota's unique taste. Many factors are important in the ham's production. While most pigs live a short life of confinement, often eating a monotonous and intensive diet, these pigs are allowed to roam freely over large areas. After the piglets are weaned, they are fed a limited amount of grain but are encouraged to find their own food in the wild. And they grow slowly. The pigs used in ham production are nearly 2 years old but weigh no more than a 9-to-12-month-old pig from a conventional commercial operation. For the last three to five months of their lives, they live exclusively on what they find in large, fenced oak groves, and the food could be mushrooms, grass, snails or whatever; the pigs are omnivorous. I walked around one patch of land with Antonio Alfonso Esposito, an elderly pig herdsman who sported a bright-colored cardigan and a large umbrella, even though it was not raining. He told me that was a precaution, so he could be spotted easily from the nearby village. (His grandfather, also a pig herdsman, had been weakened by a stroke and fell down in the compound. The next day, only his rubber boots remained. That is unusual and hasn't happened since, my guide assured me.) Acorns abound. When the herdsman shook a tree with his umbrella, a cascade of the nuts fell to the ground. Alerted by the sound, a pig approached, paying no attention to us, her sensitive snout soon finding all the acorns scattered around. And with every breath of wind: more acorns. There is no doubt that this freedom and a healthful, naturally restricted diet do wonders for the quality of life of the pig, and consequently the quality of the meat. The hams are long and relatively lean, with a thin layer of fat on the outside and a good portion of intramuscular fat. Because of the high intake of fresh foods -- such as the still-green acorns -- and low portions of grains, the fat profile is also quite different, with a much higher percentage of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids, more similar to that of olive oil than to that of formula-fed pigs. But the nuttiness that defines bellota is something else. Just as you cannot taste manure in an organic carrot, and grass-fed beef does not taste like grass, there is no one-to-one relationship between the nuts and the nuttiness in the ham, even though the producers seemingly want us to think otherwise. If it were as easy as that, even I could do it. And I have tried. Inspired by my trip to Huelva and perhaps with a bit too much time on my hands on a winter sojourn in South Africa, I teamed up with one of my neighbors in the Elgin Valley, just outside Cape Town: Anthony Rawbone-Viljoen of Oak Valley Estates, who wanted to make a Spanish-style ham and who, as the name of his estate implies, has plenty of acorns for feed. The trial project was aided by Louw Hoffman, professor of meat sciences at Stellenbosch University. In lieu of Iberian pigs, we decided to use Durocs, a hardy breed that is often interbred with Iberian pigs. The result, three years down the line -- after a bit of trial and error, tons of acorns and a significant effort from Rawbone-Viljoen -- is delicious, wonderfully marbled hams with great flavor that includes absolutely no trace of nuttiness. We had focused on the feed, but it became clear that acorns were not the source of the nutty flavor. As part of an initial experiment, we did manage to make a really nutty ham. A few of the legs were cured in the garage of another Stellenbosch meat professor, Francois Mellett; he sometimes cures salamis and ham there for his own consumption. At first the garage seemed less than ideal: Situated in the seaside resort town of Kleinmund, it was too warm in summer, turned quite cold in winter and, with a spring running through it, was always quite humid. After six months or so the hams were completely covered with black mold, and as we entered the garage we sighed with disappointment: They were spoiled. But Mellett was ecstatic and encouraged us to smell the hams before giving up. And they smelled just fine; in fact, the whole garage was filled with much of the same sweet, nutty scent that had been present in the curing facilities in Huelva. After washing off the hams with a cloth, we sampled them, and I found the flavor to be the nuttiest I had ever tasted in a non-Spanish ham, reminiscent of a combination of bellota and Tuscan salami. In fact, what Mellett had done was simply to hang the skin of a particularly good salami and a piece of bellota ham next to the hams, to inoculate them. Just as in cheesemaking or bread baking -- two of the most common fungus- and bacteria-based culinary activities -- time and the fungi had done their job, transforming the hams into something quite different from their delicious but frankly plain starting point, which was not much more than salty meat. The ham did not keep, though. Other molds must have been present, and after a few months the meat started developing other, less pleasant, flavors, including a strong ammonium taste that began to overpower the nuttiness. For the next batches of hams from Oak Valley, Rawbone-Viljoen and his team have stuck with more traditional dry-air curing. In the past I had visited curing facilities in Parma and several other places, and a common thread was how dry and controlled everything seemed. In Huelva it was different, more like Mellett's garage. I arrived amid particularly unpleasant autumn weather that was cold and damp. Inside the screened but otherwise unprotected curing facilities it was more or less the same as outside. In summer, the day temperatures are scorching; at night it is cold. That lack of control over such crucial factors as humidity and temperature is an invitation for contamination and fungal attacks. Here is the real secret of the bellota ham and its nutty flavor. The production is restricted to a few, mostly narrow, valleys in a relatively small area where the weather can be wet and wild. It seems an odd location in a country with an abundance of dry and stable climate conditions. But here in these valleys are found certain naturally occurring airborne fungi and bacteria that are now embedded in the curing sheds themselves. For months, in fact, the hams are completely covered in black fungus. It is the unique fungal curing -- more like cheesemaking than conventional meat curing -- that makes bellota so unlike almost any other cured ham. In fact, there are other pata negra hams, such as jamon iberico de pienso, from Iberian pigs that are cured similarly but raised almost exclusively on a grain-based diet. Although inferior in other ways, they have the same nutty flavor, without any of the mythology.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/23/AR2010022301330.html">Read full article...</a>

The Gastronomer: For bellota ham, nuts aren't the half of it

On the Trail of Spain's Acorn-Fed Hams Paola Singer As we sauntered up the steep, narrow cobblestone streets of Cáceres in western Spain, it wasn’t hard to imagine life there in the Middle Ages. Night was falling, and before us were Gothic churches, Roman arches and Moorish towers, glowing in the soft light of lanterns. It was an arresting sight, but our thoughts soon veered elsewhere — to food and the sumptuous meal we were anticipating. Most people travel to this ancient city for its architectural treasures; my friends and I had come to eat pork. Minutes later, we faced an encyclopedic list of traditional dishes at El Figón de Eustaquio, a family restaurant with jacketed waiters and white tablecloths. For starters, we had a plate of jamón Ibérico de bellota — cured ham made from acorn-fed pigs, which is the regional specialty — plus a round torta del casar, a creamy sheep’s milk cheese enveloped in a hard curd, and giant locally grown white asparagus. Though I considered the herbed pork sirloin as an entree, my friend Joan insisted we order the esoteric-sounding secreto Ibérico, or Iberian secret. This simply presented pork filet, we later learned, comes from a special cut near the front leg that’s interspersed with very thin layers of fat. After making all sorts of silly jokes about the curious name of this dish, we ate in complete silence. It was incredibly tender, subtly seasoned and simply delicious. Cáceres, in the Extremadura region, is in the heart of Spain’s pig country. I had traveled there in search of the world’s best ham, a recent food obsession instigated by Spanish friends. Along the way, I discovered a variety of mouthwatering specialties, learned about unique traditions and met locals with a contagious passion for their culinary heritage. As people’s knowledge and love of Spanish cuisine grow, delicacies like jamón Ibérico de bellota are entering the international spotlight. This time-honored ham arrived in the United States in 2008 to much fanfare. Sold for about $200 a pound at specialty stores … it became the most expensive cold cut in the country. Discerning consumers seem eager to pay this lofty price. This summer, the powerhouse brand 5J (Cinco Jotas) plans to enter the American market, joining the U.S.D.A.-certified producer Embutidos Fermín. “Iberian pork meat is extraordinary,” Ferran Adrià, the acclaimed chef at El Bulli, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Catalonia, said in a phone interview. “There’s nothing like it elsewhere in the world. There’s a great difference between a superior ham and all the rest.” The secret of this superiority rests in the thousands of acres of dehesas — mountainous meadows populated by oak trees — where the indigenous black Iberian pigs have roamed since ancient times. They feed on grass, fruit and, most importantly, acorns that fall every autumn from holm and cork oaks. This gives their meat a unique nutty flavor and a high level of oleic acids, considered a healthy fat. Spaniards take this food tradition seriously. More than 40 million cured hams were sold last year in Spain, and those derived from Iberian pigs are a particular source of national pride. Local residents started curing meats more than a thousand years ago, eventually turning the craft into an art. Our sybaritic journey started in Salamanca, 130 miles west of Madrid. This lively city marks the unofficial beginning of the Iberian ham trail, which stretches roughly 300 miles down to Seville. My travel companions — María, an effusive Madrileña who drove expertly over cliff-hanging roads, and Joan, an adventurous Catalan who helped us discover the Iberian secret — were old friends and fellow carnivores. After a brisk tour of Salamanca’s historic center and its lovely Plaza Mayor, we defied the custom of savoring one’s meals and ordered a few appetizers to go. We had an important appointment 30 miles south, in Guijuelo, a small town of dowdy, low-rise buildings and old-fashioned ham shops. I had arranged to visit several ham producers on our pilgrimage, and this was a required stop: the headquarters of Joselito, considered the Dom Pérignon of hams. Joselito’s owner, José Gómez, on first impression a laconic man, spoke long and fervently about the 100-year-old empire founded by his great-grandfather. “My customers are not concerned with price; they ask for the best,” he said. “The three key elements are breed, diet and curing.” While touring the company’s building, I received a master class. Each leg of ham spends about nine days covered in salt; it hangs for weeks in winter temperatures, so the salt penetrates deeply, then for months in summer heat, prompting a “sweating” process by which the fat further permeates the muscle fibers. This happens in cavernous chambers devoid of machinery, where windows are opened or shut depending on winds and humidity. When summer ends, the hams are moved to a dark cellar where they age for two or more years, intensifying their aroma and flavor, much like a fine wine. Joselito uses only hogs that are 100 percent Iberian. A whole leg, aged three years, starts at $1,000 in Spain, about $50 a pound. (Not all hams called Ibérico are acorn-fed. The label must include the word bellota.) In spite of so much tantalizing talk amid mesmerizing rows of sweet-smelling hams, no amuse-bouche was offered, and we left with empty stomachs. It was only later, savoring our memorable dinner in Cáceres, that we quelled our cravings.&nbsp; After a good night’s rest at the NH Palacio de Oquendo, a renovated 16th-century palace in the old quarter, we had breakfast alfresco on the edge of the main plaza. Nothing beats a good cortado, the strong Spanish coffee, before a long drive. The curvy, oak-lined southern roads led us to Jabugo, a village of plain white houses that lives and breathes jamón. There I met Maximiliano Portes, who in 2002 created the online brand Maximiliano Jabugo. His customers, he said, are everyday people who order airtight, pre-sliced cold cuts. Modern marketing notwithstanding, the only way to achieve high quality is through a slow, artisanal curing process. Mr. Portes’s hams hang in a thick-walled cellar, where meat has been cured since 1900. In fact, Jabugo’s quiet cobblestone streets, dotted with modest bars where local workers meet for afternoon drinks, showed no signs of modernity. As we headed back north to Badajoz, a heavy rain slowed us. By the time we reached Rocamador, a rural hotel and restaurant in a 500-year-old former monastery, it was 11 p.m. and our stomachs were growling. Thanks to the Spanish custom of late dining, the kitchen was still open. Though I was tempted by pork cheeks in a creamy vegetable sauce, for a change of pace I ordered thyme-seasoned suckling lamb with roasted potatoes. A glass of hearty Extremadura red was the perfect complement. Back in my country-chic room, aided by a lullaby of rattling leaves, I fell into a deep sleep. In the morning I met Carlos Tristancho, owner of the hotel and surrounding land. He is a partner at País de Quercus, a company that sells organic meats to distinguished restaurants like Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca. A former actor, director and producer, Mr. Tristancho is an irrepressible, middle-age character who talks about love, sex and the soul the way most people discuss the weather. During a rambling and wildly entertaining conversation, he spoke passionately of the importance of preserving Spain’s estimated seven million acres of dehesa. “This is an example of sustainability; some of the oaks here are 1,000 years old,” he said. Ideally, each animal needs six acres to roam, he said; if this balance is not respected, the ecosystem could be in danger Soon we were headed to Madrid, laughing about how we had blushed at Mr. Tristancho’s bawdy comments. But while our road trip was ending, my food quest persisted. For various reasons, I had not yet sampled a Joselito ham; I knew I could not leave Spain until I had. A few hours before my flight to New York, I walked to a gourmet shop on upscale Serrano Street. The man behind the counter carefully carved a few slices with a long knife and handed me a bite. He raised his eyebrows inquisitively. A pungent, slightly sweet and nutty flavor filled my mouth as the fat immediately melted away, revealing sea-salted, tender strings of meat. I can still taste it if I close my eyes.<a href="http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/travel/17journeys.html">Read full article...</a>

In Spain, a Delicacy Rooted in Earth and Tradition

Associated Press There's trouble afoot in the world of high-priced Spanish hams. A black foot to be precise. Less than a year after the U.S. government finally allowed the import of Spain's succulent and exceedingly expensive jamón Ibérico de bellota, the cured meat long sought by American gourmets has become caught in a quagmire of regulations and trade wars. The trouble started just months after the hams — traditionally presented with the distinctive black hoof still attached — began arriving. Someone noticed that the hoofs violated a USDA sanitary rule requiring they be removed. USDA spokeswoman Peggy Riek says the rule, which also applies to domestic production, is designed to reduce the risk of contamination. So officials began making importers cut off the hoofs. It satisfied the regulations, but irritated eaters. Meanwhile, the ham also is caught in a trade dispute between the United States and Europe that could double its already exorbitant price. As of April 23, dozens of European foods, from mineral water to chickens, could be slapped with steep new taxes. The tax — which is 100 percent on cured Spanish hams shipped with the bone — is the latest parry in a long-running quarrel with the European Union over its ban on U.S. beef produced with growth hormones. "You're just hurting individual businesses," says Taylor Griffin, president of The Rogers Collection, a Portland, Maine-based luxury foods importer. "You're not helping American trade in any way." The high-end ham is made from pampered free-range pigs fattened on acorns in the forests of southwestern Spain. The acorn diet gives the meat a satiny taste that sets it apart even from other prized Iberico hams. It can sell for $1,400 for a full ham from thigh to hoof and is described without irony as the Holy Grail of ham. "It's the best ham in the world. It's the caviar of ham. I'm such a proponent of it," says chef Terrance Brennan of the New York restaurants Picholine and Artisanal. "Once you have it, you can't go back to proscuitto ... For me, it's sublime." Strict regulations kept the bellota and other Iberico hams out of this country until a Spanish company, Embutidos Fermin, built a slaughterhouse that met muster. They began importing Iberico hams to the U.S. last year in partnership with Rogers Collection and chef Jose Andres. The pending arrival of Iberico hams in the United States made headlines. Even then-candidate Barack Obama indulged in a sample during a campaign stop last year in Philadelphia. He called it "delicious." There is hope for ham lovers. The tariff covers only hams shipped on the bone, so sliced products won't be affected. And U.S. trade officials already have delayed the tariff from the original date of March 23 to give them time to hash out an "interim solution" with their European counterparts. The tariff also is being challenged by Nestle Waters North America, a Greenwich, Conn.-based subsidiary of Switzerland-based Nestle SA that sells Pellegrino mineral water. The company claims in U.S. International Trade Court that U.S. trade officials improperly exceeded their authority with the tariff, in part because the value of the imported goods exceeds the amount allowed by law. On the hoof issue, Griffin says the governments of Spain and the United States are working to solve it, though the USDA said it has yet to receive an appeal.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/u-s-orders-hoofs-spanish-jamon-plans-tariff-article-1.370515">Read full article...</a>

U.S. orders hoofs off Spanish jamon, plans tariff

Michael Hill There's trouble afoot in the world of high-priced Spanish hams. A black foot to be precise. Less than a year after the U.S. government finally allowed the import of Spain's succulent and exceedingly expensive jamon Iberico de bellota, the cured meat long sought by American gourmets has become caught in a quagmire of regulations and trade wars. The trouble started just months after the hams — traditionally presented with the distinctive black hoof still attached — began arriving. Someone noticed that the hoofs violated a USDA sanitary rule requiring they be removed. USDA spokeswoman Peggy Riek says the rule, which also applies to domestic production, is designed to reduce the risk of contamination. So officials began making importers cut off the hoofs. It satisfied the regulations, but irritated eaters. Meanwhile, the ham also is caught in a trade dispute between the United States and Europe that could double its already exorbitant price. As of April 23, dozens of European foods, from mineral water to chickens, could be slapped with steep new taxes. The tax — which is 100 percent on cured Spanish hams shipped with the bone — is the latest parry in a long-running quarrel with the European Union over its ban on U.S. beef produced with growth hormones. "You're just hurting individual businesses," says Taylor Griffin, president of The Rogers Collection, a Portland, Maine-based luxury foods importer. "You're not helping American trade in any way." The high-end ham is made from pampered free-range pigs fattened on acorns in the forests of southwestern Spain. The acorn diet gives the meat a satiny taste that sets it apart even from other prized Iberico hams. It can sell for $1,400 for a full ham from thigh to hoof and is described without irony as the Holy Grail of ham. "It's the best ham in the world. It's the caviar of ham. I'm such a proponent of it," says chef Terrance Brennan of the New York restaurants Picholine and Artisanal. "Once you have it, you can't go back to proscuitto ... For me, it's sublime." Strict regulations kept the bellota and other Iberico hams out of this country until a Spanish company, Embutidos Fermin, built a slaughterhouse that met muster. They began importing Iberico hams to the U.S. last year in partnership with Rogers Collection and chef Jose Andres. The pending arrival of Iberico hams in the United States made headlines. Even then-candidate Barack Obama indulged in a sample during a campaign stop last year in Philadelphia. He called it "delicious." There is hope for ham lovers. The tariff covers only hams shipped on the bone, so sliced products won't be affected. And U.S. trade officials already have delayed the tariff from the original date of March 23 to give them time to hash out an "interim solution" with their European counterparts. The tariff also is being challenged by Nestle Waters North America, a Greenwich, Conn.-based subsidiary of Switzerland-based Nestle SA that sells Pellegrino mineral water. The company claims in U.S. International Trade Court that U.S. trade officials improperly exceeded their authority with the tariff, in part because the value of the imported goods exceeds the amount allowed by law. On the hoof issue, Griffin says the governments of Spain and the United States are working to solve it, though the USDA said it has yet to receive an appeal.&nbsp;

US orders hoofs off Spanish ham, plans tariff

Perhaps you've had the opportunity to try the exquisite jamon iberico de bellota, which began arriving legally in this country for the first time in August. The prized Spanish ham is an expensive treat, retailing for around $100 a pound, or $1,400 for a whole ham. Victor Grillo (right, with Matthew Torti) was on a waiting list for jamon iberico de bellota for two years. When it arrived in August, he threw a party.&nbsp; The USDA has just put new regulations in place. The distinctive black hoof you can see in the photo above -- proof that what you're getting is the real thing -- must now be removed. And there is a new 100 percent tariff on all bone-in hams imported from Europe after March. Goodbye $1,400 ham, hello $2,800 ham.

Expensive just got really expensive

A Spanish delicacy finally makes its way Stateside. Bill Citara Standing at the very pinnacle of pork, jamón ibérico- the salt- and air-cured, mahogany-colored, immensely flavored ham from Spain- has until last December only been available to Americans lucky (and wise) enough to sample it on its own turf. What makes jamón ibérico special begins with the pata negra (“black-hoof”) pig, a rare species related to the wild boar whose origins are thought to go back to prehistory. For much of their lives, these pigs forage the oak forests of Spain’s Iberian Peninsula, eating a diet rich in acorns. It’s the pig’s diet and a curing and aging process lasting two to four years that largely determine the succulence of the hams. The best grade is jamón ibérico de bellota; ribbed with luscious fat, it has a deeply savory, nutty-tasting meat that practically dissolves in the mouth.&nbsp; Of course, the best doesn’t come cheap. Prices vary with the seller and quantity purchased, but expect to pay upwards of $100 a pound for jamón ibérico de bellota paleta (from the smaller front leg) and $150 and up for jamón ibérico de bellota (from the larger back leg). Other ibérico hams are less expensive and, while not as rich as the premium grades, are still worth savoring.&nbsp;

Hog Heaven

Amy Culbertson Fort Worth Central Market just received its first-ever shipment of the pricey jamon iberico de bellota, from Spain.&nbsp; Star-Telegram/Paul Moseley Jamon iberico de bellota is best eaten alone and not recommended for cooking, especially with its $179.99-a-pound price tag. It’s the holy grail of hamdom, pig made transcendent by a life of feasting on acorns in oak meadows, transformed by salt and mountain air and time. It’s also the most expensive ham you’ll ever meet. It’s Spain’s fabled jamon iberico de bellota, and until this summer, you couldn’t get it in the United States. Now you can buy it at area Central Markets — but bring your credit card: It sells for $179.99 a pound. What could make a piece of pig so expensive? It starts with the breed. Most Spanish hams, called serranos, are made from regular pink or white pigs (often raised in northern Europe). The noble piggies that produce the iberico ham, though, are native to southwestern Spain and Portugal; Columbus, we’re told, had some on board for his New World voyage. This cerdo iberico breed is also known as pata negra, or black-hoofed; the hams are often sold with hoof attached. These hogs are hard to produce and expensive to raise.&nbsp; But they have a unique ability to store fat, which is marbled throughout the meat, and the luckiest of them roam free in southern Spain’s oak meadows, fattening on acorns — bellotas — which give the fat a high level of healthy monounsaturated oleic acid. The acorns give the bellota ham its distinctive flavor. The more time it takes to produce something, the more it’s going to cost, and the bellota pigs live longer than their more plebeian brethren before they’re slaughtered — or, as they say in Spain, "sacrificed" — gently, with carbon dioxide, so as not to raise their stress level and release adrenaline, which would affect the meat. They’re even serenaded with Mozart the night before to keep them mellow. They’re cured longer, too — up to four years; the aging confers additional depth and complexity of flavor. Then there’s the fact that the hams are hard to get. Folks who’d tasted iberico ham on trips to Spain pined wistfully for it on their return. Until the Fermin company built a special slaughterhouse in Spain to meet U.S. Agriculture Department standards, iberico couldn’t be imported. From the new Fermin plant, as their curing periods ended, the lesser grades of iberico arrived over the past couple of years. Meanwhile, foodies and porkophiles waited as the bellota hams cured. Finally, this summer, the bellota hams were shipped. Central Market says it’s the only retailer selling them in the Southwest. But how does it taste? That is why I show up at the Fort Worth Central Market on a recent morning, excited to get my first taste. Deli and cheese manager Brandon Campbell and sous-chef Andrew Dilda are laying out petal-thin slices of prosciutto di Parma and San Daniele Secola 20-month prosciutto; Spanish jamon serrano; and three types of iberico — regular jamon iberico; shoulder (paleta) of iberico de bellota; and the crown jewel, the just-arrived jamon iberico de bellota. I taste my way up the scale. The prosciuttos are delicious, but the darker serrano is gamier, more complex. The iberico cuts, though, with their deep, rich, nutty, aromatic flavor that resonates in the mouth, make me forget the hams that came before. The glistening wine-red bellota slices are edged with fat the color of old ivory; the fat — more prominent in the paleta — seems to melt on the tongue. After I swallow, the flavor hums in my mouth for minutes. So, is this ham that much better than other hams? Yes. Even the less expensive regular iberico, at $99.99 a pound, is light-years above its Spanish and Italian cousins. Indeed, the much-anticipated arrival of the bellota iberico has one happy side effect for me: It makes me feel less guilty about splurging on the regular iberico — after all, it’s almost a bargain, right? Is it worth paying $25 for 10 or 12 paper-thin slices of bellota ham? That depends on you. The Central Market deli folks will allow you a small sample to try. But I warn you: The stuff is addictive; it tends to ruin you for lesser hams. And it will put you on the horns of a dilemma: Foodstuffs this dear are usually reserved for special occasions, but you will be tempted to keep it not only from your guests but also from your loved ones, to savor every rich shard and morsel by yourself. About iberico What it is All iberico cured meats are made from the cerdo iberico, or pata negra, breed of pig. The difference in grades lies in how they were raised. Iberico de bellota comes from pigs that range free on the dehesa, or oak meadows, grazing on acorns. Central Markets sell bellota jamon (ham) for $179.99 a pound and paleta (shoulder) for $119.99.&nbsp; Iberico ham comes from pigs raised on farms and fed on grain. Central Market sells it for $99.99 a pound. How to say it Jamon iberico de bellota is pronounced "hah-MOAN Ee-BARE-ee-ko day bay-YO-tuh." How to use it Iberico is best eaten the same day it is cut, but it can be stored for a week; keep it in the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer in the zip-lock bag from the store. Ham of this quality should be sliced very thinly and savored as an appetizer or snack. Iberico is not ham you cook with — "that would be like deep-frying with truffle oil," Fort Worth Central Market sous-chef Andrew Dilda says wryly. If you want to serve it as part of an appetizer spread, Central Market bakery, deli and cheese business development manager Edouard Damez suggests ripe figs and aged Spanish cheeses such as an artisanal Manchego, raw-milk Ibores or Ossau-Iraty. But, he notes, it "should really be enjoyed by itself." To drink, Fort Worth Central Market wine and beer manager J.R. Clark suggests Spanish wines: For whites, a light, crisp Albarino from Rias Baixas; or the sparkling Gramona Gran Reserva Cava ($14.99); or the bright Oreka Txakoli from the Basque region ($19.95). For reds, he suggests a tempranillo such as the $14.99 Mibal Tinto, or, should you wish to splurge on the wine as well as the ham, the massive Vizcarra Celia or Vizcarra Inés, from the Ribera del Duero, at $129.99. Sherry is always appropriate, too. To learn more Taste the jamon iberico de bellota at a "Taste of Spain" class at the Fort Worth Central Market at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 24 ($60). Clark and deli and cheese manager Brandon Campbell will lead a class on Spanish cured meats, wines and cheeses; 817-377-9005. Amy Culbertson is the Star-Telegram food editor, 817-390-7421

Jamon Iberico de Bellota tastes like every penny

From swine raised like royalty, cured ham called jamon iberico is finally here By Devra First - Globe Staff / August 13, 2008 WAYLAND - This party has been two years in the making. At the home of Frank Cutitta, friends are beginning to gather. Cutitta, a media executive, is in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on pasta alla carbonara and veal saltimbocca. Outside on a stone patio overlooking a pond, people mill around the guest of honor. It weighs 13 pounds, glistens with fat, and is capped by a dramatic black hoof. It's a ham, but not just any ham. This is jamon iberico de bellota, the be-all-and-end-all, Rolls Royce, ne plus ultra of hams: one that positively demands a party. It comes from Spain, and it is among the first whole bellota hams to legally reach this country. Until now, to get a taste of this porcine holy grail, American foodies had to hop a plane. The ham has arrived in the United States because the Spanish company Embutidos Fermin, located in the medieval village of La Alberca, spent much of the last decade working to meet USDA specifications. The company built a new slaughterhouse and formed a partnership with chef Jose Andres, host of the PBS series "Made in Spain," and Portland, Maine, importers the Rogers Collection. In 2005, they got the green light. The following year jamon iberico began to trickle into the country, first in the form of sausages, then paletas, or shoulders. But the actual hams, which take several years to cure, didn't start shipping to customers till last week. The ham has arrived in Wayland because Cutitta's friend Victor Grillo, the man behind such ads as the famous Ginsu knife infomercial, heard about it long ago and decided to get his hands on one. Jamon iberico's cult following stems in part from its mystique: nearly unattainable, dearly expensive. It retails for $96 a pound and up. Its provenance adds to that; the ham comes from pigs that are as coddled as the cattle that become Kobe beef. The pigs roam free, feasting on acorns ("bellotas" in Spanish). "They live in pig paradise," says Don Harris. "They grow up as a gang together for two years, then when it's time for them to meet their maker, they play them Mozart. After Mozart, they go to bed for the night. I don't know if they're tucked in. The next morning they get hot showers, then some mysterious carbon dioxide enters their atmosphere and they go off to piggy heaven." This is referred to not as slaughtering the pigs, but as sacrificing them. The hams then cure for up to four years in clean mountain air. The piggy spa treatment takes place for a practical reason. "They want them very mellow," Harris says. "If they're scared, they produce epinephrine. If they're not stressed, the meat is fine. I'm not saying the ham people are pig lovers. They're meat lovers." The main reason bellota ham is so coveted, of course, is its flavor. "It's very meaty, rich, marbled with fat," writes Andres in an e-mail from Spain. "Jamon iberico is the finest ham in the world. It is a ham that will ruin you for other hams." He recommends serving it alone, or topped with caviar and rolled up like a cigar. The meat is dark red, almost the shade of corned beef. It tastes like prosciutto in Technicolor, nuanced and blossoming in the mouth, with a lingering touch of iron. The fat has faintly fruity undertones; it dissolves on your tongue. Harris says the curing process converts much of the fat of acorn-fed hams into healthy monounsaturated fat, like olive oil that happens to taste like pork. According to the nutrition label on Fermin's website, a 1 ounce serving has 84.5 calories, 51.3 from fat; about a third of that is saturated. So it's not exactly health food, but it does taste extraordinary. "The operative word for the bellota is 'meaty,' " says Harry Saltzman, who went to visit his ham in La Alberca. "Even the fat, which of course my wife assiduously cuts off and I love and I eat when she's not looking. I've been told the acorns give the ham and the fat this rich flavor. It's spectacular. Nobody believes me it's as good as I say." Saltzman, a retired music professor and conductor who lives in New York, has requested his ham be delivered on the autumnal equinox; his kitchen is too hot in the summer. He and his wife, Barrett Cobb, travel to Spain regularly. They first tried jamon iberico on one of their trips. "We bought some and we were hooked," he says.&nbsp;Then, just as they were about to head off on another trip, an e-mail came. "It said 'Do you want to visit your ham?' " Saltzman recalls. "I immediately e-mailed back. We were going right past La Alberca. So we visited the ham. We had to go through a bath for our shoes and put on white robes and shower caps. We got great pictures: me petting a ham, then petting a pig." When it arrives, they'll have a party, of course. "We'll have to round everyone up," Saltzman says. "My brother and sisters and a few other crazies like me have bought 1 pound chunks of it, which I'll cut for them." You can taste jamon iberico de bellota locally, too. Estragon, Toro, and Persephone are among the restaurants that will serve it, and specialty shops such as Formaggio Kitchen and Las Ventas have it in stock. Back at the Cutitta home, the spread is on the table. Cutitta, who is famous among friends for his cooking, has created a feast based around Grillo's ham. There are slices of jamon iberico de bellota, unadorned; figs topped with the ham, manchego, and Italian honey; skewers of shrimp with ham; mushrooms with ham; the carbonara and the veal ("make sure you say it's from Waverly Market," Cutitta says). "Isn't it great when food brings people together?" Grillo says. Then he takes his first bite of carbonara, topped with more slivers of jamon and Spanish cheese. "I'm gonna fall over," he says, practically swooning. "Oh my God, this is awesome. This is better than sex." And with that, it's time for a toast. "Here's to the pig!" Grillo says, raising a glass of Rioja. And together the friends salute the guest of honor. “Here's to the pig!”

This little pig heard Mozart

Savoring the elusive bellota ham, soon to be legal in the U.S. Raymond Sokolov Next month, restaurants across the U.S. will at last be able to serve the world's best and costliest cold cut -- legally, that is -- for an expected $50 or so a plate. Anyone with the time and the euros has been able to fly to Spain and taste jamon iberico de bellota, the aged, acorn-fed ham of black-footed pigs. But here in food-fearing America, official approval for this glistening, fat-streaked delicacy dragged on. At one Manhattan tapas bar, the owner offered contraband portions of bellota and even advertised the ham on his Web site -- until U.S. Customs nabbed one of those precious porcine back legs. That forced the owner to get in line with Mario Batali and other high-on-the-hog restaurateurs who await bellota's legal entry into the country as early as next week. Spain's bellota ham, from pigs that dine on acorns, will finally be available in the U.S. Eager for a taste, I paid a visit earlier this month to Casa Mono, Mr. Batali's inventive Manhattan tapas restaurant. Lacking the real thing, he apologetically served me the cured shoulder of a bellota porker, which became importable sooner than hams from the same animals. Bellota (Spanish for acorn) acquires its complex, profound flavor from the pigs' unusual diet as well as from the two to four years the hams are hung up to air-cure. (Unlike most American hams, bellota isn't smoked or subjected to heavy doses of salt to cure it.) But even the bellota shoulder "ham" was pretty fabulous, or at least fabulous enough to get Molto Mario to sniff it like fine wine. Both of us had tasted back-leg bellota ham in Spain, and we knew it had an even more elegant texture than the shoulder (paleta in Spanish). But I didn't trust my memory going back several years to a heavenly ham moment in Seville. So to get a jump on the bellota bandwagon, I found a source for the real thing right here in North America -- in Canada, which legalized the importation a few weeks before its lumbering cousin to the south. I flew to Toronto to check it out. There, on Yonge Street, said to be the longest street in the world, I found a minimal but baroquely ambitious and up-to-date place called Cava. Cava is the name given to champagne-process sparkling wine made in Spain. Cava the restaurant serves an imaginative array of foods inspired by the small-plate dishes one might find in a Spanish tapas bar. The menu proudly lists the essential item in the traditional tapas menu, jamon serrano, the brilliantly hearty mountain ham that has been available in the U.S. for many years now. But Cava also has begun serving bellota, though as an off-the-menu special because of difficulties with supply. Was it worth the trip? Well, I scored a taste scoop. A beautifully cut plate of translucent ham cost me 25 Canadian dollars (a little less than US$25). I didn't weigh it, but I would say I was served as much as four ounces, which I savored with a glass of manzanilla chosen from Cava's extensive sherry list. Since that is about half the expected U.S. price of a bellota serving I probably offset my travel expenses by $25. This ham was not only glorious to behold, but it also had a truly astounding range of tastes, spanning the register from dark to light, and it challenged the tooth coyly. This meat was a "ham what am," Al Capp's highest praise for ham in his comic strip "Li'l Abner." But the ham the Yokum family ate in Capp's mythical Dixie hamlet of Dogpatch was something quite different, presumably a Southern country ham of the salty, rough-and-ready variety that aficionados like me gobble down with redeye gravy. By contrast, jamon iberico de bellota is a miracle of low-sodium refinement coaxed from pampered pigs that range at leisure over wide swaths of land, munching acorns while their hindquarters swell. You can see the result of all this languorous balanophagy (Greek for acorn-eating) on your plate. This is the only ham that has lacy lines of fat looping through the whole visual field of every slice. And the fat is what gives the ham its plush, porky flavor. Cholesterol nannies will note that bellota's sole importer, Fermin, publishes a chart of "nutrition facts" that advertises 87.9 calories for a one-ounce serving, of which 55.2 calories are from fat, about half of it saturated. This is not your cardiologist's idea of health food. Only a handful of corpulent hedge-fund managers are likely to manage a steady enough diet of bellota for it to be a health worry. But should you be searching for an excuse to eat more of it, just remember: Bellota is a shining example of sustainable agriculture. Spanish farmers let their pigs loose in oak forests to feed exclusively on acorns for the last three months of their lolling lives. And acorns, properly managed, are -- do I need to tell you? -- a renewable resource.<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121460185679911843.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">Read full article...</a>

High on the Hog

Owen Dugan Learn these words: jamon lberico de bellota. They literally mean "ham from Iberico-breed pig that was fed mostly acorns." In terms of gastronomy, these Spanish hams represent one of the world's most coveted foods, and one that has not met federal import standards ... until now. Iberico is prized for its depth and complexity of flavor. It's nuttier and gamier than prosciutto but sweeter than Serrano ham. The meat is a bit chewy, although the silken fat softens it. The acorns provide oleic acid (aka "good fat"), and the relatively greater amount of fat requires that the ham be aged longer-up to three years-which intensifies the flavor. The pigs are essentially free-range, allowed to wander wooded plains and getting more exercise than lot-raised animals. They eat whatever they find, which includes the acorns. Eventually their diet is shifted to acorns alone, not unlike cattle that are grass-fed but finished on corn. The right breed, feed and lifestyle are the corner-stones of quality, and this ham benefits from all three.

Ham It Up

TRAVEL Q &amp; A Scott Vogel Q. In Spain, tourists get to savor delicious Serrano ham practically anywhere but are cautioned that our Department of Agriculture minions will seize the product if we attempt to bring it into this country. Is this true? Why? A. Your passion for this long-cured Spanish delicacy is to be commended, but is that any reason to dis an entire federal agency? And before you answer, consider this: The only thing keeping out all those mad cows and foot-and-mouth types who lurk among the pigs you love are customs agents and people at the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. People like Masoud Malik. "Our regulations do not allow any meat products to be brought in from certain countries" by private individuals, he told us. "That includes all of Europe and all ruminant meats from there: cattle, sheep, goats, any animal with four stomachs." Four stomachs? Wait, is a pig a ruminant? "No, but they have their own diseases as well," Malik said, among them swine vesicular disease and classical swine fever. He went on to warn that the agents that cause disease "cannot really be inactivated by normal cooking and heating. So that's why we do not allow it." (For more information on import restrictions, see http://www.aphis.usda.gov or call 301-734-3277.) Further, people who try to enter the United States with, say, a pig's leg stuffed in their pants "are taking a chance not only for them, but for the livestock of this country," Malik said. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/25/ST2008042501960.html">Read full article...</a>

When Pigs Can't Fly

Marlene Parrish &amp; R.L. Wolke Iberico pigs enjoy a free-range diet of acorns under holm oak trees near the town of Badajoz in the Spainish region called Extremadura. Iberico ham is the pride of Spain. Like Beluga caviar or Kobe beef, Jamon Iberico is the ultimate ham. Many believe it to be the very best in the world. Until recently, Iberico had been unavailable in the United States due to issues with processing that have been addressed; it now conforms to federal regulations. Finally, in December, the first Jamones Ibericos arrived. In celebration of its debut, the first ham was sliced by Spanish and American celebrity chef Jose Andres at Jaleo in Washington, D.C. The Spanish ambassador to the United States cadged one of the first slices. Ah, but the best is yet to come. The crown jewel, top-of-the-line, best-of-the-best Spanish ham is Jamon Iberico de Bellota. These rare hams come from animals who spend their days feasting on the oil-rich acorns (bellotas) from oak trees, which infuse their meat with flavor. This acorn-fed ham will be arriving in America in late summer. With apologies to my Italian friends, a side-by-side comparison with Jamon Iberico de Bellota makes Italian prosciutto taste like chipped ham. Tasting is believing I had the enormous good fortune to savor this ham eight years ago on my birthday. My husband, Bob Wolke, and I were traveling in Extremadura in western Spain with food journalist friends. It was a bright, sunny November day in "the land of the pig," and we were invited for a mid-afternoon meal on the estate of a family who raised the prized hogs. When our van got stuck in a muddy rut, we walked the rest of the way to the manor house through the fields under the trees. The free-ranging pigs were all around us, and while they were somewhat curious, they mostly ignored us and kept nuzzling acorns on the ground. I swear they seemed content and happy. Why not? They were living in a porky paradise, eating all they could hold, their every need cared for. The lunch served that day on the patio was so locally produced I could see the sources. The table was set with bowls of black and green olives and flasks of recently pressed and unfiltered olive oil, both from the olive grove nearby. There were platters of cheeses, and yes, I could see the cows. Egg-and-potato Spanish tortillas were bright yellow from the yolks of the chickens pecking for grubs off to the side of the kitchen. There were platters of pork charcuterie, cazuelas of pork stew and baskets of rustic bread. Dessert, a nut tart, was made from the delicious acorns that the pigs feast upon. What a brilliant touch of continuity, I thought. But all eyes were on the ritual slicing of the Jamon Iberico de Bellota. The whole, black-footed leg was clamped horizontally to a special stand. A man holding what looked like a short conductor's baton stood beside it. Before beginning, he inserted the baton, a thin horse bone, into the meat, removed it, and sniffed. He gave a short nod to indicate he liked what he smelled. He then used a long, thin slicing knife to cut away a layer of fat, which would be reserved to cover the cut surface to keep it from drying out. He rhythmically removed paper-thin slices about 3 inches long, overlapping them slightly on a serving plate. Each slice, streaky with marbled fat and rosy-to-winey-to-mahogany in color, had a wide edge of glistening fat. As we held a slice in our palms, the fat began to melt. We then tasted the first pieces by warming them on the tongue to release the nutty aroma. The taste was incredibly delicious, intense and concentrated, not salty or sweet, but more like umami. We alternated tastes of Iberico with bread dipped into the olive oil and sips of local red wine. The trio of flavors resonated on the palate. It was unforgettable bliss. That melt-in-the-mouth fat consists of 55 percent oleic acid, the heart-healthy monounsaturated fat found in olive oil. These pigs' fat is much more like vegetable oil than animal fat. "I've been told by growers like this one that the acorn-fattened Iberico pig is like an olive tree on four legs," said our friend Janet Mendel. Ms. Mendel, an American writer who has lived in Spain for many years, is the author of six books on Spanish cooking, including "Cooking From the Heart of Spain" (Morrow, 2006). “About 90 percent of what makes this a superior ham has already been accomplished before the pig is even slaughtered. This is the real deal. It never gets better than Bellota.” The lineage of the black-hoofed (pata negra) descendants of native boar that produce these hams goes back to pre-history, when they ran wild in the Iberian Peninsula. Later on, Christopher Columbus, a fellow with an eye for fine provisions, had some of these pigs on the Santa Maria when he set out to discover the New World. There are two types of these pigs; one lives the life of a normal domestic pig, and one is free-range fed on acorns and wild plants. The only difference is in diet and exercise, but those things make all the difference in the world. From birth, the hogs destined for Bellota quality are treated royally. They live, sleep and forage in the open in specially maintained oak forests, called "la dehesa," which is a unique ecosystem of meadow, grass and scrub dotted with holm and cork trees. The pigs typically have more than five acres in which to forage and roam, and they live for about two years in this setting -- longer than the life span of a normal domestic pig. When they bulk up in the fall, the pigs put away 15 to 20 pounds of acorns a day, allowing them to gain as much as 2 pounds daily. The Spanish have a reverent term for their eventual slaughter -- the hams are "sacrificed." After a vet inspects the carcasses, they are cleaned and chilled. Butchers then carve the legs for hams. Processing the hams takes time, however. They are trimmed and sculpted by removing the skin but leaving about an inch of fat. Then they are salted and left for a week after which they are washed and sent to hang in a drying room for a few months. Finally, they are hung to age from two to four years, when, like fine wine and cheese, the hams mature and develop flavor. Spaniards consume the vast majority of these rare Bellota Iberico hams. Some producers have waiting lists for several years for their best products, because they can't produce enough hams to meet the demand. Besides Spain, France and Japan are the big customers. The United States just joined that list. How do you know you are getting the real deal? Read the label, pay the price. Iberico Bellota. The best-quality Iberico carries this label. Within Spain, this ham has four geographical Denominations of Origen, all in southwestern Spain. There is a consortium named Real Iberico whose producers label their product with a certificate of guarantee. These are the hams that should be available in the United States in late summer. Should, I say, because shipping and importing variables may prevail. Iberico. This ham is produced from the Iberico breed, but fattened on pig feed and grain. While Jamon Iberico is the formal name, pata negra or "black hoofed" is the informal term or nickname because many Iberico pigs have a black foot. Serrano. A third kind of Spanish ham is made from ordinary pigs, country cousins of the Iberico. Serrano ham is made anywhere in Spain from cross-breed pigs. This is the ham that is found in every tapas bar and restaurant. But beware. When purchased, all three types must be held at ideal conditions and be freshly sliced, thinner than thin.

Dish: You'll go nutty for Spanish 'jamon'

Amy Culbertson The arrival of Spanish Iberico hams to this country has been breathlessly awaited by epicures, serious porkophiles, Spanish-food devotees and status-obsessed foodies -- and the first hams have arrived at last. These hams come from a special breed of hogs, the Iberico, also called pata negra (black-footed), and are produced by the first slaughterhouse in Spain built to satisfy the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rules. They're not the holy grail of hamdom, the Iberico de bellota, from hogs that graze on acorns for several months, but they are the closest thing. They're from the same breed of hogs, just slaughtered earlier, giving them less time to gorge on acorns. The Iberico pigs' meat has more marbling than the meat of American breeds does, for superior flavor and texture, and the acorns they eat boost their levels of heart-healthy monounsaturated oleic acid. Central Market received its first shipment of the Iberico ham last week and is slicing the boneless ham to order for $99.99 a pound.aculbertson@star-telegram.com Amy Culbertson is the Star-Telegram food editor, 817-390-7421.

Spain Cures Ham Craving

Some of the most celebrated pork in the world comes from free-roaming pigs that feast on acorns in Spain. Tom Perry Prized for its sweet, nutty and delicate taste and succulence, cured ham from these rock-star pigs became available this month for the first time in the United States. The price for this ham, known as Jamón Ibérico, starts at about $50 per pound. All 300 of the hams in the first shipment were spoken for, having been preordered in 2002. As the legendary Spanish ham was making its U.S. debut, La Quercia LLC, a Norwalk-based artisan pork processor, began curing meat from 49 of what are believed to be the first acorn-fed, pasture-raised hogs in Iowa - if not the United States - that were part of an extensive commercial venture. Acorns are a natural swine food that has been removed from pig diets, especially in the United States, because there are more efficient ways to feed pig herds. "In Europe, they've been feeding acorns to pigs for centuries,'' said Herb Eckhouse, co-owner of La Quercia with his wife, Kathy. He added that it is generally agreed that acorn-fed pigs produce a sweeter and richer-tasting pork. La Quercia's Acorn Edition pork, as it is being called, has already attracted the attention and financial support of some of the nation's finest chefs. If all goes according to plan, the Iowa-made product will be the American cousin of Jamón Ibérico. Last week, a prominent California chef and two food industry executives traveled to Iowa just to catch a glimpse of the Acorn Edition pork and the operation at La Quercia. One of the executives, Carlos Souffront, of Zingerman's, a highly regarded Michigan food emporium, said matter-of-factly: "This is food history in the making.'' If that seems like a bit of a stretch, consider this: The Eckhouses found 48 partners, most of them from East and West coast restaurants, to join the Acorn Edition project. Each of those partners invested $3,000 per hog to take the risk in Iowa. The list of subscribers to the La Quercia project features "Molto'' Mario Batali of Food Network fame and a roster of award-winning chefs from New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. In Des Moines, George Formaro of Centro and Gateway Market and Michael LaValle of the Embassy Club were subscribers. "You look at the list of people and see the company you're keeping, and you go, 'Wow,' " said Formaro. "You've got guys like Mario Batali. At his level, those guys don't mess around. They didn't put up $3,000 because they wanted to be nice." The Eckhouses were able to find willing partners for their Acorn Edition project because for the past two years their Iowa-made pork specialties have been judged worthy domestic rivals of the finest European imports, Formaro said. Chris Blobaum, an Iowa native and chef at the Wilshire in Santa Monica, Calif., visited Norwalk last week to spend time at La Quercia. A regular buyer of La Quercia products, Blobaum said he's excited about the Acorn Edition project. He said he knows of farmers in California who have raised five or six acorn-fed pigs for friends or for their own use. "But I don't know of anyone who has ever tried something to this extent," he said, referring to the Acorn Edition project. Customers at his restaurant, where the cost of an entree is in the range of $29 to $39, will enthusiastically support high-quality local and domestic food products, he said. "You're seeing it with cheese being made here in the United States," he said. "It's similar to what happened with wine years ago." It is no longer unusual for his customers to pay $125 or more for California wines from very small wineries, said Blobaum. Along with chefs, U.S. food writers have discovered La Quercia. The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and Vogue magazine have all rhapsodized about the quality of La Quercia's prosciutto. In October, Bon Appetit magazine named the processor its Food Artisan of the Year. Formaro, a devotee of Italian prosciutto and one of La Quercia's first customers, said he considers the rave reviews an affirmation of his view that "here's a guy in Iowa who's making some of the best prosciutto in the world.'' The Acorn Edition prosciutto will be ready to evaluate in about a year, Herb Eckhouse said. But he's encouraged by the fresh Acorn Edition pork he tasted last week. "A lot went into this project," Eckhouse said. La Quercia turned to a farmer in northeast Iowa for its hogs. Becker Lane Organic Farm in Dyersville raised the Berkshires, a prized breed, for the project. After the pigs were weaned, they were introduced to an acorn diet. The chefs who subscribed to the Acorn Edition will receive the pork from their pigs in the Old World way, which translates into an "18-month culinary experience," Eckhouse said. Some fresh pork has already been sent out. But cured specialities, such as prosciutto and pancetta, will be dispatched after they've aged properly. Because subscribers will receive their products over the course of months, it is unlikely that La Quercia Acorn Edition pork will show up as regular menu items. Most restaurants are likely to use the pork as a part of special events, Formaro said. "One good thing about this is that it is going to be like the old days.... Nothing will be wasted," he said, explaining that most chefs are likely to use every scrap of meat from their pigs, since the cost averages out to about $30 per pound for the pork. The true test of La Quercia's Acorn Edition pork will come near the end of 2008 when the prosciutto is ready, Eckhouse said. "If it isn't really great," he said. "We probably won't do it again." Reporter Tom Perry can be reached at (515) 284-8224 or tperry@dmreg.com

Hog wild over acorn-fed pork

Jerry Shriver Gastronomes who flock to Spain to partake of the country's famous cured meats will no longer have to smuggle the most prized example back home: Ibérico hams have been approved for sale in the USA for the first time, and a small initial supply is making its way into the retail pipeline this month. Jamón Ibérico comes from Ibérico pigs native to Spain. They roam and forage outside, and a small percentage spend their final months in oak forests eating an acorn-intensive diet. The hams are cured for two years or more, resulting in a deep mahogany color, nutty flavor and creamy texture. Embutidos Fermín of Spain, the sole producer authorized to export to the USA, has shipped about 300 of the more common Jamón Ibérico hams here, which they will sell in gourmet stores and online for about $50 a pound. The Bellota hams, made from acorn-fed pigs, are due this summer and will sell for about $100 a pound.

Spain cures U.S. desire for Iberico ham

Walter Nicholls PORK PROJECT: Attention, vacationers to Spain: There is no longer a need to hide a leg of celebrated Ibérico ham in your suitcase on the trip home. In a ceremony Thursday at Jaléo restaurant downtown, chef and co-owner José Andrés and importer Santiago Martin of Fermin USA were joined by Spain's ambassador to the United States, Carlos Westendorp, for the slicing of the first jamon Ibérico -- dry-cured ham made from Spain's black-footed pigs -- to legally enter the United States. Fermin USA won importation approval after a 10-year effort. "Every cuisine has its hero," Andrés said. "In Spanish cuisine, it's the Ibérico ham, the best ambassador a country can have."From pigs raised in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, Ibérico's mahogany-colored meat is highly marbled, sweet and nutty. But the legs are not the highest-grade Ibérico de bellota hams, from pigs that gorge on acorns in the four months before slaughter, but rather the Ibérico de recebo hams, which may have some acorns mixed into their feed. The suggested retail price for the boneless recebo is $86 per pound. The bellota hams will be imported in late July and will sell for about $160 per pound.<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/11/AR2007121100534.html">Read full article...</a>

Dish: Pork Project

Florence Fabricant THE first Ibérico hams from Spain are ready to be sold in the United States, having passed government inspections. They will make their American debut tomorrow afternoon at Jaleo, in Washington, where the chef José Andrés plans to slice and serve jamón Ibérico to the Spanish ambassador, among others.&nbsp; In the next few weeks, some restaurants and shops will serve and sell their allotments of the...&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/dining/05hams.html">Read full article...</a>

Ham From Spain’s Prized Pigs Ready for Debut

Adam Goldman The bellhop in Madrid had a confused look on his face when I handed him a bag with a black hoof sticking out it. "What?" I asked. "It's a jamón ibérico de bellota." The young man understood. As everyone knows in Spain, this was no mere pig. The marbled meat of the jamón de bellota is a delicacy, the granddaddy of all hams. My friends and I had been carrying one around to nibble on during a culinary trip through Spain. A descendent of the wild boar that predates the Roman Empire, the ibérico or Iberian breed is only found in Spain. The black beasts, commonly known as pata negra or "black hoof," graze in lush mountain meadows called dehesas where they devour mushrooms and roots. The meadows are dotted with oak trees that layer the ground with acorns. There are two types of ibérico. Jamones ibérico are slaughtered before autumn and the hindquarters are cured for two years. Sausages and a type of ham called lomo can take up to four months to cure. But it's the bellota (acorn in Spanish) that's most prized and the most expensive. These pigs spend the fall months gorging on acorns, storing huge levels of monounsaturated fat in their muscle -- the same fat found in olive oil. During these particular months, the bellota pigs can double their size, reaching 400 pounds. For a bellota, curing the hindquarters can last three years. Shoulders for both types of ibérico take a little less time because they're smaller and there's less fat. Both types of ibérico are covered in sea salt for a number of days and then washed off and put in a cellar to dry. As a result, ibérico hams are less salty than, for example, proscuitto hams, which are hand-salted and slathered in lard, or smoked Virginia hams. Neither type of ibérico has ever been available in the U.S. But that's about to change, said Taylor Griffin, president of The Rogers Collection, an importing company based in Portland, Maine. Griffin and the well-known Spanish chef Jose Andres, who has popular restaurants in Washington, D.C., have teamed up to bring the famous hams to the U.S. "Jose Andres, he's really helped get this whole thing going, convincing the producer it was worth doing," Griffin said. At the moment, their company, called Fermin USA, is the only approved importer of the ibérico ham, Griffin said. Embutidos y Jamones Fermin in Spain is raising the pigs and exporting them to the U.S. Griffin said in July 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved an ibérico slaughterhouse in La Alberca, near Salamanca. Last year, some ibérico sausages and lomo were imported into the country, but the shipments were halted after a series of bureaucratic glitches. Griffin said by the end of the year, all ibérico products -- except for the bellota -- will become available in the U.S. People will have to wait for the bellota until July 2008, Griffin said. Prices will be steep for both products. In the store, a pound of bellota will run about $160, he said. The ibérico will retail at about $85 a pound. (The one we bought in Madrid weighed about 11 pounds and cost $130).

Famed iberico ham makes a perfect traveling companion for culinary tour of Spain

Leslie Cole For lovers of all things piggy, the expected arrival early this year of iberico ham (jamon iberico), the Perigord truffle of the pork world, was cause for celebration. Despite plenty of promises, the wait isn't over yet. Streaked with creamy, nutty-tasting fat and so red it's nearly purple, the salt- and air-cured Spanish mountain ham, known also as pata negra (Spanish for black foot or black hoof), is widely acknowledged as the world's greatest. "It's fantastic," says Steve Jones of Steve's Cheese in Northwest Portland, who tasted the most prized type, the acorn-fed jamon iberico de bellota, several years back at Harrods in London. "It is really hard to forget. The acorns impart a definite nuttiness." A popular bar snack in Spain (some would call it a national obsession), iberico ham, like its everyday cousin, serrano, is a meatier, gutsier nibble than a delicate slice of prosciutto. The meat comes from free-range Iberian hogs, a boarlike heirloom breed that roams Western Andalusia gorging on wild acorns. The breed, the feed and the fact each whole-leg ham dry-cures for two to four years, accounts for its appeal and its exorbitant price: around $1,200 for a whole ham, although you can buy it by the slice ($50 to $100 a pound, depending on the grade). Trouble is, it's never been sold on American shores because until recently Spain lacked a USDA-certified slaughterhouse for it. (Serrano ham gets around that because it's butchered in Holland, which does have USDA facilities, and then sent back to Spain for curing.) That changed in 2005, when a small Spanish operation called Fermin built a USDA-approved facility and was approved to export iberico pork products to the U.S. Though a few cases of chorizo and salchichon, dry-aged sausages made from the vaunted pork, slipped into Portland last fall (Pastaworks sold them locally for about a month), the shipments stopped, and there's still no sign of that ham. What's the holdup? It boils down to missing paperwork, say folks close to the process. "For the last six months, we've been on a sort of go-slow," says Taylor Griffin, a partner in Fermin USA, the U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish producer. (Another partner in the venture is Spanish chef Jose Andres, who owns Jaleo and six other restaurants around Washington, D.C.) "We had to verify some of the processing steps in a scientific way for USDA, and they stopped us from exporting more product until we did these things." Fermin, Griffin says, was "delisted" by USDA officials but is in the process of re-listing. What should have taken 90 days to sort out has taken six months, he says. Within a month he expects to see chorizo and salchichon, spicy, dry-cured sausages made from iberico pork. The chewy, deep-red chorizo is flavored with smoky pimenton; the wine-colored salchichon flecked with black pepper. Soon after that, Griffin expects lomo, cured pork loin. The first iberico hams should arrive by summer, but it could be August 2008 before anyone sees the top-grade bellota hams, which require longer aging. Iberico ham, like its more common cousin, serrano, is meant to be nibbled as a snack, in small, bite-sized slices. If you want to capture the spirit of a tapas bar, serve it alongside some olives, toasted almonds and a glass of sherry. And be sure to eat the ham at room temperature to get the most flavor out of that luscious fat. Another thing about that fat: Peter Kaminsky, author of "Pig Perfect," points out that about 55 percent of it is monounsaturated (the type that's in olive oil) and another 10 percent to 15 percent polyunsaturated because of all those acorns the forest-roaming hogs ingest on their way to becoming meat. But the reason to buy this ham, if only a single slice, is not good fats. It's good flavor.

You'll Savor the Experience of Spanish Iberico Ham -- Eventually

Russ Parsons What's the hottest news in the world of cured meats? Jamón Iberico is coming to the United States. One of the treasures of Spanish gastronomy, jamón Iberico is made from black-footed pigs (hence the alternate name pata negra) that have been raised on acorns and wild plants. Though it has been made in Spain for centuries, only in July was a producer certified by the Department of Agriculture to ship the hams to the U.S. It is wildly expensive, even in Spain. In the U.S., prices are predicted to be in the $80 per pound range, with boneless hams going for as much as $139 per pound. But it's not coming any time soon. Because of the amount of time required to cure the hams, the first ones won't be arriving for more than a year -&nbsp;late fall of 2007 at the earliest.

Pork Leg Futures

Florence Fabricant In a few weeks, New York shops are expected to start selling the special, costly meat from the black-footed Ibérico pigs of Spain, including the Ibérico de bellota, the ones that are fattened on acorns. Despaña, Fairway and Formaggio Essex, among other food shops, are expecting shipments of the lomo, or meat from the pigs’ loins, and sausages. Formaggio Kitchen in Massachusetts will also sell them, and they are available from tienda.com. The lomo, which has been aged about four months, is a sausage-shaped piece of solid, dry-cured, burgundy-red meat. A pound or more, it is enclosed in a natural casing. It is richly meaty and, when sliced thin, excellent simply on a plate or in sandwiches. It is easy to cut at home with a sharp knife, and it offers the same depth of flavor that makes the ham, jamón Ibérico, a connoisseur’s delight. The hams that are to be imported still have more than a year’s aging to go before they will be ready to be sold. The loin takes less time because it is a much smaller cut of meat.&nbsp; Some of the meats are labeled “bellota,” indicating that they are from Ibérico de bellota. Bellota lomo has a nuttier, deeper flavor, more marbling and a slightly softer texture. Thick chorizo, seasoned with paprika, and salchichón, a kind of salami, are also available both from regular Ibérico and from bellota. The bellota is richer.&nbsp; Until now, all the pork products imported to this country from Spain have been made from pigs raised and slaughtered in other countries, like Denmark, and cured in Spain. Ibérico products are from Spanish pigs and made by Embutidos Fermín, near Salamanca, in a facility approved by the United States Department of Agriculture. The products are imported by Fermín USA and have the label of José Andrés, a chef in Washington who is a partner in the venture.&nbsp;

From Spain’s Prized Pigs, a Taste of What’s to Come

The cure for ho-hum ham: salt, air, time and care Amy Culbertson At Easter, a cook's thoughts often turn to ham. But if your mental picture involves a giant pink football, sugar-glazed or covered with pineapple rings, oozing juice and cut into thick, soft slices, you have a whole world of ham yet to explore. For many who are passionate about pork, those spiral-sliced babies that anchor holiday tables in so many households are wimpy, waterlogged, flabby, pale imitations. The real thing? Dry-cured ham, aged and coddled for months or even years, according to ancient farmhouse traditions. Prosciutto from Italy. Jamon de serrano from Spain. Westphalian and Black Forest ham from Germany. American country ham from Virginia, Kentucky or Tennessee. Or the fabled pata negra, black-footed ham -- the crown of Spanish cuisine and so prized that aficionados are plunking down a couple hundred bucks' deposit each to secure a place on the waiting list for the first Iberico hams that will reach this country, in 2007 or 2008. What makes these delicacies different from their city cousins? Almost everything, it turns out. Your typical mass-produced supermarket ham, usually sold already cooked, has been wet-cured, or brine-cured -- injected with a curing solution containing salt and probably sugar, as well as sodium nitrate and other chemicals. "Look at the ingredient line; if the first or second ingredient listed is water, that's a pumped product," third-generation country-ham producer Sam Edwards of Surry, Va., says disdainfully. By contrast, the ingredients that come together to turn a leg of pork into a dry-cured ham are salt; possibly sugar or pepper or a few other spices; smoke, in some cases -- along with air, microbes, temperature and time. Air makes the difference Artisanal food expert and author Ari Weinzweig of the Zingerman's specialty food empire sums up the dry-curing process in an essay called A Campaign for Country Ham:&nbsp; "Dry-cured hams are never baked, boiled or steamed. Rather, the "cooking" is done by a combination of salt, time and, sometimes, smoke. In the process, harmful bacteria are killed, 'good' molds develop to contribute to flavor, and water leaves the ham through evaporation, concentrating the ham's natural flavors in the process." The curing and aging ritual varies in detail from region to region, but the outline is essentially the same: The trimmed ham legs are covered with salt; then, after a period of curing, are either smoked or hung directly in an aging room to air-dry. Curing, of course, started out as "a way of preserving fresh meat to eat year-round," notes Edwards. As the hams age, they lose so much moisture that bacteria can't multiply in them, so they are safe at room temperature. In the process, though, as the meat ripens and the complex proteins break down, a transformation in flavor is effected. In some European ham traditions, the very air -- mountain or ocean breezes -- is considered essential in developing the ham's special flavor profile. But most ham experts note that the ham starts with the pig -- its breed, its food and the way it is raised. Which brings us back to Spain's jamon Iberico, the Holy Grail of hamdom. It's made from a special breed of black pigs that roam oak woodlands in Spain… The pigs forage on acorns, which in turn flavor their meat. ___ If you're not in the market for a thousand-dollar ham, don't worry: You don't have to go whole hog to explore the world of dry-cured ham. Yes, the per-pound prices do hover around the $20 mark, but a little bit goes a long way. For an appetizer, you need only buy a couple of ounces of dry-cured ham per person; for seasoning or flavoring in cooking, you won't require much, either. Less expensive is the smoked ham called speck, of Austrian origin. It's a real sleeper, touted by chefs and foodies such as Weinzweig. In a recent ham tasting at Central Market, some of us favored the speck over the pricier prosciutto and serrano. And a bargain compared with its imported brethren is country ham made by small producers in the Southeastern U.S. -- though it's hard to find in these parts. If you think dry-cured ham begins and ends with prosciutto, he insists, you're shortchanging yourself: "It's like saying all cheese is Cheddar, and I don't need to try the other cheeses because I've already eaten Cheddar." From Spain to Germany, a gallery of dry-cured hams An overview of some of the varieties of dry-cured hams that are likely to be accessible to American buyers: Prosciutto is the most widely known dry-cured ham in America. For years, the only legal prosciutto-style hams sold in America were domestic-made imitations, as U.S. regulations prevented the import of prosciutto from Italy. Since 1989, though, we've been able to buy the real thing. Italian prosciutto is air-dried, not smoked; only salt is used in the cure. The most celebrated Italian prosciutto is Prosciutto di Parma, from the Emilia-Romagna region. Many aficionados, however, prefer Prosciutto di San Daniele, from the Friuli region in the northeast. Jamon serrano, from Spain -- another unsmoked ham -- is gaining popularity as an alternative to prosciutto. It has a coarser, more rustic texture and a lustier flavor than that of prosciutto. While in Italy the prosciutto "face" is covered with lard during part of the curing process to keep the meat moister, in Spain no lard is used, to promote water loss. The drying sheds are usually built at high elevations (the word "serrano" means "mountain-dwelling" or "of the mountains"). The two brands you're most likely to find are Revilla and Redondo Iglesias, both aged for 18 months. Westphalian ham is a German product that is cold-smoked over a beechwood fire to which juniper twigs and berries are often added. Sold boneless, it's more strongly flavored, saltier and darker than the Mediterranean hams, with an almost gamy edge. Black Forest ham, above, is another German ham. The boneless ham is soaked in caramel before being heavily cold-smoked over pine chips. It has a prosciuttolike texture and appears quite lean. Speck is a lesser-known dry-cured ham, prized by cognoscenti for its distinctive flavor. Of Austrian origin, it's produced in the Dolomites in the Alto Adige region of Italy, which used to be part of Austria, as well as in the Carinthian region and other areas of Austria. This ham is lightly smoked, and spices are added to the curing salt. With its well-balanced flavor, this may be the most versatile of all the dry-cured hams. Even more happily, it's usually cheaper than prosciutto or serrano. American country ham is a tradition in the Southeastern region of the United States. Salt-cured, it's sometimes flavored with sugar, honey or pepper, and it's cold-smoked, most commonly over hickory or maple. Most producers encourage the formation of mold as essential to the ham's complexity of flavor, and the salt cure is heavier than in most of the European hams. The most high-profile American country ham is Smithfield ham, produced inside the corporate limits of Smithfield, Va. Tasso -- a heavily smoked, highly spiced, extremely lean ham that is used more often in cooking than eaten raw -- is a regional specialty of Louisiana's Cajun culture. Local availability has become inconsistent after Hurricane Katrina. &nbsp;

Highbrow Ham

*is not available in the U.S. Yet Arthur Lubow The oak-stippled hills of western Spain resemble the world's most scenic wine regions—Napa Valley, Chianti, Burgundy—with just one element missing: the vineyards. The landscape is so picturesque that it might be mistaken for a gigantic park. However, should you drive from Huelva in western Andalusia north to Salamanca in the late fall or winter, you would eventually spot the economic underpinning of these woodland pastures. That black, bristled, stocky animal snuffling through the undergrowth in a ceaseless, gluttonous quest for acorns is the ibérico pig, the scion of an ancient race that has survived unchanged for two millennia. Perfectly adapted to its climate and terrain, this pedigreed swine is the source of the finest ham in the world.&nbsp; Actually, the aficionados of jamón ibérico would rather you didn't think of their beloved ham as, well, as a ham. For instance, when I mentioned to Rafael Ansón, the president of the Spanish Society for Gastronomy, that the best jamón ibérico goes for upwards of $80 a pound in Madrid and that such a price may strike most Americans as being high for ham, he replied, "What is the cost of white truffles? A pound of beluga caviar? Ibérico ham is a bargain." I got a similar reaction when I asked Miguel Ullibarri, the manager of the ibérico ham producers' trade group, Real Ibérico, to explain what distinguishes jamón ibérico from Parma prosciutto or Spanish jamón serrano. "We never compare ibérico ham with other hams," he told me in a gently admonitory tone. "I love Parma ham and jamón serrano on some occasions, but they are not competitors of jamón ibérico."&nbsp; Still unobtainable in the United States, ibérico ham really deserves a category of its own. The delicacy's uniqueness was memorably revealed to me during a dinner at El Bulli, the temple of avant-garde cuisine on the Costa Brava, about an hour and a half's drive from Barcelona. We were served, as one of nearly 40 small courses, what appeared to be cherries covered in white chocolate. One bite revealed our error: These cherries had been dipped in the fat of ibérico ham. Delicious! The fat was earthy, nutty, and delicately perfumed. "I love a lot the complexity of the ham," the chef, Ferran Adrià, later explained. "Normally the Americans and the French don't like it, and the Italians cut away the fat. It's a cultural thing. It's very Spanish."&nbsp; That's true—but whatever the pork-loving advantages of growing up on the Iberian peninsula, sophisticated palates of any nationality recognize the ham's virtues. The illustrious, archetypally French chef Joël Robuchon informed me flatly in Paris, "The ham and pork of Spain are the best in the world." (We were speaking at the L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, his idiosyncratic—and mobbed—version of a sushi or tapas bar, where a plate of unadorned jamón ibérico is the most expensive dish on the menu.) In New York the telegenic Mario Batali recently opened Bar Jamón, which features Spanish tapas. Because of import restrictions, Bar Jamón can serve only jamón serrano, a cousin of jamón ibérico. Still, serrano is more than respectable. Chef Andy Nusser, who runs the kitchen at Bar Jamón, says that serrano ham is superior to prosciutto from Parma. However, he readily admits, "Once you taste ibérico, you can't compare it to anything else."&nbsp; A slice of the best jamón ibérico is dark pink or purple in color, suffused with veins of yellowish-white fat. At a tasting arranged for me in Madrid, at the fine traditional restaurant Príncipe de Viana, whole bone-in hams from five regions were lined up. Three came from the areas that, much in the way wines receive regional certification, have won Denominaciónes de Origen accreditation (Huelva, Guijuelo, and Dehasa de Extremadura), while two were from regions with applications pending for the D.O. (Sierra de Sevilla and Los Pedroches de Córdoba). Ansón, who had arranged the event, demonstrated the method for judging an ibérico ham. First, place your nose up close to assess the complexity of the aroma. Then rub your finger on the oleaginous exterior: The fat should be light, not thick and greasy. The visual examination, for depth of color and a glistening surface, is a third test. Finally, you get to taste. At room temperature (the way it should always be eaten) the fat melts in your mouth. The flavor? In a fine ibérico ham, it's as subtle and multileveled as a great wine. During the tasting that afternoon I preferred the offering from the Extremadura. However, what we were really determining wasn't superiority but subtle regional differences: For instance, the hams from Seville and Córdoba tasted brinier.&nbsp; By consensus, the best ham maker in Spain is Joselito, a company based at the northern, colder edge of the range, near Salamanca in Guijuelo. Both Adrià and Robuchon serve Joselito ham in their restaurants. So does Juan Mari Arzak, Spain's most venerated older chef, and Andoni Luis Aduriz, the most talented younger chef in the nation, at their establishments (Arzak and Mugaritz, respectively) in the Basque Country. "The quality is unbeatable," Arzak says. Rafael García Santos, the highly influential Spanish food critic, rates the Joselito Gran Reserva at 9.75 out of a possible 10—which in his view makes it the best food product of any kind in the country.&nbsp; Seeking insight into the mysteries of jamón ibérico, I enlisted the men who run Joselito, a fifth-generation family firm: José Gómez, the company CEO, who oversees the curing plant; his brother Juan Luis Gómez, who supervises the farms; and Germán Arroyo, the export manager. I started at the source, with the pigs, and I visited them during the montanera, the six-month period when they roam the woods, gorging on acorns. By the time they commence this final feast, the pigs are about two years old. At Joselito and the other best brands (notably, Sánchez Romero Carvajal of Jabugo), the breed of pig is pure ibérico; however, less-traditional companies have begun interbreeding the old race with modern varieties that fatten up faster and produce more piglets. Government regulations allow manufacturers to call any pig an ibérico if its parentage is at least three fourths from the ibérico breed. Although some types of pure ibérico pigs are red, golden, or spotted, most are black with black hoofs (which are included in the whole ham)—the reason that pata negra has become a synonym for ibérico.&nbsp; The montanera is the critical point in the process. It's the pigs' diet that sets apart jamón ibérico from other hams; in fact, the breed is important primarily because—athletic, drought-tolerant, long-legged—it is accustomed to eating very little during the dry summer and devouring as much as 20 pounds of acorns daily in winter. At the start of the montanera, the pigs are very hungry. "To fill the bottle, first it has to be empty," Juan Luis Gómez says. Watching these pigs forage is a fascinating experience. In the wooded pastureland, called the dehesa in Spanish, the two most common trees are the holm oak and the cork oak. The holm acorn is sweeter. In early winter the pigs disdain the acorns of the cork oak, leaving them to litter the forest floor. Instead, they root through the underbrush with their pointed snouts and inhale the holm acorns, crunching down on them and letting the shells fall to the ground. Later in the season they will return to the rejects and scarf them up. As a result of this gluttony, a pig can easily gain a pound and a half a day, until it finally tips the scales at 360 to 400 pounds. To ensure an adequate supply of acorns for such binges, each pig must have about four acres of the dehesa. This factor is what keeps the price of the best jamón ibérico so high and the production so low.&nbsp; There are indeed lesser forms of jamón ibérico, made from pigs that haven't consumed so many acorns. The highest category—jamón ibérico de bellota, "bellota" being Spanish for acorn—comes from animals that have put on at least one third of their weight by eating nothing but foraged acorns and grass (and the occasional snake) during the montanera. Ibérico pigs with a diet less heavy in acorns are classified as recebo; if they have eaten solely cereals, pienso. In an average year, there will be 4.5 million ibérico hams, but only one tenth of them are bellota. Even among the bellota hams, Joselito separates the largest and best shaped, distinguishing them as Reserva hams. Because the acorn crop varies each year depending on rainfall, ibérico ham is as vintage-dependent as wine. "The worst acorn crop of my life was in 2000," José Gómez says. "Forty percent of Joselito hams were put out under the second label, C. Jota."&nbsp; The acorn-rich diet transforms the fat of jamón ibérico de bellota. Studies from the University of Extremadura indicate that more than half the ham's fat content is monounsaturated (the type that is in olive oil) rather than the artery-clogging saturated kind usually found in animals. Significantly, at room temperature the ham's fat virtually melts, like a vegetable oil. "When the pig is slaughtered, an analysis of the fat is done," Real Ibérico's Ullibarri explains. "You can see the correlation between the amount of acorns eaten and the percentage of oleic acid—which melts at room temperature—in the fat of the animal."&nbsp; At Joselito, salting, curing, and aging are done as they have been for centuries. In the factory in Guijuelo, the only mechanical contraption is a button that opens or closes the windows in the drying rooms to regulate the temperature. In the winter, following the slaughter, the hams are piled up and kept in hills of sea salt for nine days. The smaller the ham and the colder the weather, the less salt is required. "We try to use the minimum amount of salt," José Gómez says. "Salt makes the curing process quick, but a ham with a lot of salt, if you keep it for a long time, becomes heavy like concrete." The salt is then washed off, though some has already entered the meat, and for the next three months it migrates inward to the bone. "We need a cold and dry period," Gómez says. "Then comes the curing, when the white fat turns to yellow, in summer. We also need an in-between period in the spring, when the ham adapts to the heat of summer."&nbsp; Curing takes nine months. After the first 30 days, the hams are covered with a blue-gray patina of mold. "A normal customer in the shop, if he saw the mold on the ham, he would throw it in the dustbin," Gómez says. "But this is what gives it an aroma." In the summer, as the hams sweat off the fat, the odor of the mold penetrates the meat. (From the time of slaughter to sale, the hams lose a third of their weight.) In modern facilities, like the Jabu plant that Joselito owns in Jabugo, technology has been harnessed to reproduce the temperature and humidity of the seasons. At the top-of-the-line plant in Guijuelo, however, nature is permitted to call the shots. Depending on their size (big hams are aged longer), the hams spend 18 to 20 months in the drying rooms. José Gómez says that a large Joselito ham can be kept for seven years. I can't attest to that, but he did serve me one from 1999. Deep purple with striations of yellow fat, it was redolent of the nutty flavor of acorns. Almost five years old, the ham was still in its prime.&nbsp; Because no Spanish slaughterhouses conform to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, jamón ibérico is unavailable in the States. (Outside Spain, the ham is for sale in many of Europe's best food shops; see "Where to Find It.") Jamón serrano can be imported and sold here if the pigs have been butchered in Holland or Denmark before the hams are cured in Spain. Jamón ibérico de bellota, though, must be produced entirely in Spain: The ibérico pig and the dehesa's acorns are essential to its unique flavor.&nbsp; The good news is that COVAP, a cooperative of 10,000 farmers in Córdoba, has built a new slaughterhouse in the town of Pozoblanco, designed to gain the USDA's approval... First will come the sausages (chorizo, salcichón, lomo) that are made from other parts of the pig and demand less time to cure—they may be obtainable by early 2006.&nbsp; Ibérico ham is best eaten unembellished. Ideally it is placed on a special stand and the carver uses a long, sharp knife to cut paper-thin slices. "Anything you do with this product is going to make it worse," Ullibarri says. "For chefs, it's a bit of a problem." The best chefs have the self-confidence to present it naked. The only decision remaining, then, is what beverage to serve with the delicacy. To culminate our Madrid tasting of five hams, Rafael Ansón raided his capacious cellar and offered ten candidates. Among them were such rarities as a 200-year-old solera sherry and a 1982 Mouton Rothschild ("the best Mouton of the century," Ansón said proudly). The winners were far humbler. The dozen of us at the tasting judged a chilled fino sherry as the best, and a young red wine—what Spaniards call a tinto crianza—as the runner-up. Both wines were able to cut the unctuous richness of the ham. In a sense we had rediscovered the wheel, as these are the traditional accompaniments to jamón ibérico. That simple wines work best with ibérico ham comes as no surprise. "Thirty years ago this was a poor people's product," Ullibarri observes. "It's what was available in those areas. It's what people ate for energy." Like black truffles, which Provençal peasants once dug from the woods for free, what was yesterday beneath notice is today beyond praise.&nbsp;

The Most Delicious Ham in the World*

Leslie Crawford Christopher Columbus carried it on his second voyage to the Americas. Hernando de Soto, discoverer of Florida, would not have left home without it. George Washington made it on his farm in Mount Vernon. Today, sadly, Americans are denied a Spanish delicacy enjoyed by their forebears. It is against US law to import jamón ibérico - the hind leg of an Iberian pig, hoof attached, swaddled in fat, covered in a thin green layer of protective mould, occasionally sprouting wiry black pig hair - because Spain does not have a single slaughterhouse that conforms to the regulations of the US Department of Agriculture. While its appearance may offend more sensitive souls, the taste of jamón ibérico inspires a cult-like devotion among international foodies. This caviar of cured hams gets its sweet, nutty flavour because Iberian pigs are allowed to roam the oak forests of western Spain where they feast on nothing but wild acorns. Devotees include Alain Senderens, chef of the Michelin three-star Lucas Carton restaurant in Paris, and Joel Robuchon, a chef whose bespoke hams are tagged and cured at Carnicas Joselito in the town of Guijuelo, two hours west of Madrid. Joselito hams cost between $600 (£310) and $1,000, with a minimum purchase of 50. There is a five-year waiting list and no secondary market. The writer is the FT's Madrid bureau chief.

Free the Spanish Ham for US Tables

Peter Kaminsky This is a tale of obsession that began nearly two years ago in a smoked-filled bar in the mountains of Andalusia. On a cold January night I had what I have since come to recognize as a major ham epiphany: my first taste of a long-cured, translucently pink, Ibérico ham glistening with droplets of amber fat. The flavor - salty, sweet, nutty, slightly funky - was as complex as a mature pinot noir. That first nibble caused me to wonder whether such marvelous pork could be raised in the United States. It may be that the answer lies in the 23 rare hogs that I helped haul a thousand miles from a medical research facility in Columbia, Mo., to two family farms in the Carolinas. The pigs were Ossabaws, descendants of Iberian swine that were left by 16th-century Spaniards on Ossabaw Island off the Georgia coast. My partner for the cross-country pig portage was Chuck Talbott, an adjunct professor at North Carolina A&amp;T. He shared my hopes for these pigs: that they would produce supernal meat bursting with flavor and, just as wondrously, the salubrious fat, high in omega-3 fatty acids, for which Spain's Ibérico hogs are famed. Dr. Talbott and I of course are not alone in our pursuit of perfect pork. In recent years several conscientious producers have built their reputations on flavorful pork, including the Niman Ranch Pork Company in Thornton, Iowa; Eden Farms in State Center, Iowa; and Flying Pig Farm of Shushan, N.Y. Ossabaws have also been on view at places like Colonial Williamsburg. But we had an idea, or a newly rediscovered idea: that this ancient breed could be nourished in the United States as it is in Spain, on the free and biologically sustainable products of our forests. To understand our hopes for the Ossabaws, you must know something about hog rearing in their ancestral home. Nearly a millennium ago, the Spanish developed a system of sustainable animal husbandry that has shaped a landscape that looks for all the world like a well-manicured golf course. It stretches for 300 miles from Andalusia, up through Extremadura, and into Salamanca and Segovia. The dehesa, as these lands are called, is the realm of Ibérico pigs as well as the ancient Mediterranean oak forest that produces their favorite food, la bellota, the acorn. Jamón Ibérico is made from a rustic breed of swine, little changed in 10,000 years. These long-legged, wiry-haired creatures developed an ability to assimilate flavor-enhancing fat into their muscles. But today, with the exception of the dehesas of Spain's western marches, Ibéricos have been supplanted by confinement pigs, breeds better suited to industrial methods of hog rearing. These animals have, most serious cooks agree, dry, insipid-tasting meat and less of the fat that allows jamón Ibérico to age from two to five years. Fat in ham is like tannin in great wine: without it a ham cannot develop complex taste. Miguel Ullibarri, the general manager of Real Ibérico, a consortium of traditional Spanish ham makers, said that the fat of Spain's acorn-eating pigs was higher in monounsaturated fatty acids than any other meat, up to 55 percent. For this reason Spaniards have taken to calling their beloved Ibérico the four-footed olive tree. There is only one problem with this delicious, healthful, environmentally friendly product: you can't get it here. Fear of disease has made it illegal to bring Ibérico hogs, or their meat, into the United States. This may change soon… Ibérico hogs arrived in America with the second voyage of Columbus. The conquistadores who followed him often left breeding stock at promising landfalls, confident that should they ever return, there would be hogs aplenty. The 700 pigs that Hernando De Soto took with him from Cuba to the Southeast in 1539 were the foundation stock of hundreds of thousands of pigs that once roamed the forests of the Southeast. As Americans moved west, they turned much of the wilderness into cornfields. Faster-growing, less mobile breeds of pig were perfected for the barnyard and sty, so that farmers could market their surplus on the hoof. Meanwhile the Ibéricos and their descendants - suited to life in the wild - all but disappeared. But I suspected that their DNA survived in isolated pockets in much the same way that old English ballads survived in the isolated hamlets of Appalachia.&nbsp; I received exciting affirmation of this when I came across the writings of I. Lehr Brisbin Jr. of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, an author of "Wild Pigs in the United States." In that work he refers to the hogs of Ossabaw Island as descendants of Ibéricos. Ibéricos! In America? I had to get my hands on some. In his reply to my enthusiastic e-mail message, Dr. Brisbin cautioned that one could not simply go and get a pig off the island without risking importing disease. More distressingly, the state of Georgia had begun a program to exterminate the Ossabaws, citing the threat they pose to endangered loggerhead turtles. Dr. Brisbin encouraged me to contact Dr. Michael Sturek at the University of Missouri, who was conducting diabetes research with Ossabaws that he had taken off the island a year ago. With the assistance of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, I enlisted Dr. Talbott, whose oft-repeated mantra is "Upscale, designer pork for high-end consumers and chefs." His interest in artisanal pork landed him a grant from the multimillion dollar fund established in the tobacco settlement of 1999. With that money, Dr. Talbott had set up a pilot program that provided hogs, expertise and a guaranteed market to small farmers in North Carolina who wanted to stay in farming but had few alternatives outside of tobacco. When I told him about Dr. Sturek's Ossabaws, Dr. Talbott eagerly agreed to purchase 23 of them, which is how and why we acquired the truckload of pigs that we drove across America's heartland. We delivered half of the animals to Emile DeFelice's Caw Caw Creek Farm in St. Matthews, S.C., where they would subsist on acorns and grasses supplemented with peanuts, another traditional pig feed high in omega 3. The shy animals entered their new environment tentatively. Frightened by the barking of of Mr. DeFelice's dog, they drew themselves into a tight circle, manes bristling. But when it was apparent that the even-tempered hound meant them no harm, they started to explore their new home, crunching on newly fallen acorns. Two days later, we dropped off the remaining Ossabaws in Mebane, N.C., at the farm of Eliza Maclean. Ms. Maclean did not yet have access to a forest, so she planned to raise her group in a large paddock, feeding them peanuts, alfalfa and acorns from an enormous oak in her pasture. The pigs took on weight quickly, and by December Mr. DeFelice was able to ship me half of an acorn-fed pig. I braised the shoulder slowly and savored my first bite. The taste was right, but the meat could have been juicier. A month later Ms. Maclean's pigs had fattened up nicely and were ready for the pan. She sent one to Donna Lennard, the owner of Il Buco in New York, where the chef, Ed Witt, prepared a loin eye dusted with fennel pollen that delivered waves of exquisite porkitude. For purposes of comparison Mr. DeFelice sent me a Farmer's Hybrid (the genetic line that Niman Ranch prefers) that had been allowed free range of his forest. Interestingly, it exhibited equally powerful taste and succulence, leading me to suspect that any pig hardy enough to live outdoors and munch acorns or peanuts will produce superior pork. According to Dr. Talbott, scientific analysis of the Ossabaw meat indicated that the pigs that were fed acorns averaged 14.7 percent more monounsaturated fats than conventionally fed hogs. The breed was thrown a lifeline in September when Slow Food U.S.A. placed the Ossabaw on its metaphorical ark of endangered breeds that have been singled out for preservation efforts. As Erika Lesser, who is Slow Food's executive director, described Ossabaw pork, "It just tastes better than other pigs." The environmental side of the story is similarly promising: if we raise pigs in the forest environment in which they evolved, or at least allow them the exercise and the primeval diet of their wild past, we will have better pork. Exploiting acorns as animal feed would mark a return to a renewable and free resource that could help to reclaim our woodlands. And if this practice knocked a few points off our national cholesterol average, that would be nice as well.

On the Trail of Fine Ham: First, Plant an Acorn

Iberian hams and sausages are finally becoming available in the United States. Sam Guigino Chances are you've never tasted the ham that many consider the best in the world. Called Ibérico, after its region of origin in Spain, it has a firmer texture and a more intense, gamier, flavor than other well-known cured hams. It's also illegal in the United Stated -- until 2005. While Italians take ham, most notably their Prosciutto di Parma, very seriously, the Spanish raise ham-devotion to a whole new level, consuming double what the Italians eat. Ibérico hams will be available in the United States in 2005 -- the first year that these hams will be produced to meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture's stringent standards. But right now, you can at least get the idea by tasting another Spanish ham, called serrano. These are not aged as long and come from pigs that are fed a different diet, but their style resembles Ibérico's and they taste great. Prior to 1997, serrano hams were banned because of concerns about a swine virus that affected much of Europe (Prosciutto di Parma was also banned). Another relatively recent stateside import is Spanish chorizo, the smoked cured pork sausage. The Spanish have been curing hams for centuries. Originally produced mostly in mountainous areas, the ham was called jamón serrano. Jamón is the Spanish word for ham and serrano comes from the word sierra, Spanish for mountain. Virtually every region of Spain has its own version of serrano ham, though the procedure for making them is quite similar. It begins with white pigs, normally Duroc, Pietrain, Landrace or Large White varieties, that are fed a diet of grains. Once slaughtered, the rear legs are rubbed with coarse sea salt. When the salt is washed off, the hams are hung to dry, losing up to a third of their weight. Traditionally, this step involved exposing hams to the dry mountain air. Today, most hams are cured in temperature- and humidity-controlled facilities called secaderos. European Union regulations require serrano hams to be aged at least seven months. To obtain the seal of the Consorsio del Jamón Serrano Español, a Spanish trade group formed in 1990, hams must be aged at least nine months. Because Spain does not have a slaughterhouse that meets USDA standards, serrano hams imported into the United States come from pigs raised and slaughtered in Denmark or Holland. The meat is then sent to Spain for curing.&nbsp; Ibérico hams come from a special breed of black-footed (pata negra) pigs in southern and southwestern Spain. Until the slaughtering facilities meet USDA standards, the only way you'll be able to taste Ibérico ham is to travel to Spain. For some folks, it might be worth the trip. "It's so special that you're more likely to eat it by itself," says Penelope Casas, author of Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain (Knopf). "The pigs exist on a diet of acorns, which gives the meat a very nutty flavor. It has streaks of fat through it, like a well-marbled steak. That adds to the flavor." So too does the length of curing, from 14 to 36 months. All this and limited production means that a whole Ibérico ham may cost up to $800 in the United States, about four times the price of serrano ham.&nbsp; I tasted three serrano hams from two producers. Meat from an 18-month-old Redondo Iglesias bone-in ham was easily the best. The thin streaks of fat throughout each slice gave the meat a seductive creaminess. And even though my less-than-wafer-thin slices were a bit chewy, the flavor was still nutty, rich, and elegant. Redondo's La Primera sliced ham, aged 12 months, came in beautiful, thin sheets. It had good flavor but was less refined, lacking the silky mouthfeel of the whole ham. Slices I cut from a chunk of boneless 12-month-old ham made by Navidul were similar to La Primera, but slightly coarser in texture. Spanish chorizos had the same difficulty as serrano hams in making it into the United States. Palacios, the only Spanish chorizo in the United States, wasn't widely available until the fall of 2001. Like serrano hams, the three imported Palacios sausages come from Denmark pigs. Unlike the more common Mexican chorizo, which is usually raw, these Spanish chorizos are cured, much like Italian salami. Another distinction from the Mexican chorizo is the Spanish use of pimentón, a smoked paprika. Palacios chorizos are also made without nitrates or nitrites, unlike many cured sausages. Several companies make Spanish-style chorizos in the United States. The best I know of is La Española Meats Inc. in Southern California. In 1982, Juana Gimeno Faraone, a native of Valencia, and her husband, Frank, started the company, which produces sausages under the Doña Juana label. Except for the U.S.-bred pigs, everything else for her sausages comes from Spain, including a reassembled curing room and an inspector from Barcelona. Faraone's sausages have names such as Pamplona and Léon that reflect the regional variations in flavor and texture. The main difference between the Spanish and domestic chorizos I tasted was the intensity of the pimentón. In the Palacios sausages, the pimentón was more pronounced, giving them a brooding, earthy quality that the domestic sausages didn't have. The picante Palacios had a long, slow-building heat as well. The mild and picante Palacios chorizos had a firm texture while the similar tasting Palacios Oreado (which is sometimes grilled even though fully cured) was softer. La Española's Léon chorizo had and intoxicating smoked meat and leather aroma, like that of a good Rhone red. The meaty flavor had gentle hints of spices woven throughout, though the texture was a bit chewy. There was more pimentón in the Pamplona, but it wasn't as deeply embedded as it was in the Palacios. Sobrasada, a specialty of Mallorca, was soft with a rich pimentón flavor. Generally, the best way to serve serrano ham and chorizos is by themselves, the way you get them in Spanish tapas bars. At home, the Spanish will often buy a whole ham on the bone and keep it on the counter (nestled in a holder called a jamonera), swiping off slices as they pass by during the day. You may not feel comfortable doing that. However, refrigerated hams and sausages should be brought out an hour before serving. For hors d'oeuvres, you can accompany thin slices of ham and chunks of chorizo with almonds (toasted or fried in olive oil) and olives. I like to put ham and chorizos along with potatoes in tortilla, an open-faced Spanish omelet. Try the ham (especially end pieces that don't make pretty slices) in bean stews, rice dishes and with vegetables such as braised cabbage. Sobrasada chorizo is often spread on toast and drizzled with honey for breakfast. Quality serrano ham is also finding its way onto menus. At Ola, Douglas Rodriguez's new restaurant in Manhattan, the ham adds a salty tang to foie gras and fig empanada. In another dish, Rodriguez wraps scallops in the ham before pan-frying the morsels and serving them on a sweet corn tamale. Rodriguez also uses chorizo but prefers not to embellish it, so he puts it on a charcuterie platter. Hands down the best wine with the hams and chorizos was a fino Sherry. Its crisp, clean fruitiness was an excellent foil to the fat and salt mix of the ham and the pimentón of the chorizos. The bubbles of a Spanish cava nicely cut through the saltiness of the ham and sausage. A Verdejo-based white from Rueda, an Albariño and a rosé were also good choices. For reds, I'd stick with a young, fruit-forward Tempranillo. If you're into wine futures, you might consider one to go with that Ibérico ham in 2005.

Tastes: The Spanish Cure

David Rosengarten Until recently, Spanish hams have been unavailable in the United States because of the government's ban on importation of foreign meat products. But recently two large companies—Navidul (with connections to Hormel!), and Redondo Iglesias—received approval to bring this delicacy into the country. So far, I have been more impressed by the jamón from Navidul. And The Spanish Table is a perfect source. They will ship to you, if you desire, a whole 15-pound Redondo Iglesias Jamón (bone-in or boneless; I far prefer bone-in) for $225, a great idea for a party! Make sure to request the Black Label jamón that's 18 months old.

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