Jamón
After a week of being sick, I’m finally up out of bed, ready to write about some yummy goodness!
If there is one food that Spaniards are really really really proud of, it’s their jamón. Jamón is the spanish word for ham. However, do not mistake this as plain old deli meat that you’d put in your kid’s ham and cheese sandwhich. This is no regular ham that you would buy in a North American grocery store. The Spanish jamón is a dry-cured ham which tastes absolutely delicious. I suppose you could compare it to the Italian prosciutto, but any Spaniard would die if they heard that. The Spanish version is much saltier and has a very different texture. It also has a very unique, and much more intense, flavour than prosciutto.
Beautiful pig legs...
Jamón is bought by the leg. What leg? The leg of a pig of course! While you can find sliced jamón in grocery stores, and you can even buy a few yummy slices at a market, the traditional thing to do is to buy the entire leg. It even comes with the hoof and the little tiny hairs on the ankle. You are all saying “ew” right now aren’t you? That’s ok, the first time I entered by boyfriend’s parents’ house and saw the giant pig’s leg sitting in the kitchen, I let out a little yelp. Then I refused to enter the kitchen again. Buuut once I’d been given a few slices of that jamón, and realized how amazing it was, I agreed to go back into the kitchen and take a look at it. It wasn’t so bad. Actually, it’s quite impressive. This large piece of meat sits in a special stand on the counter for months, and just keeps getting better as time goes on. Although I do not recomend buying this if you don’t have a large family to feed (it’s quite a bit of food) it is traditional in Spain to buy one for the christmas season and share it with the friends and family who stop by.
Image from : spanishtaste.es
Now, there are many different kinds of jamón. Many Spaniards debate on whether the serrano or the iberico jamón are better, but it depends on preference. What makes the jamón iberico so special (and so much more expensive) is that it comes from a special breed of black Iberian pig. The quality of the jamón depends entirely on what the pig eats, and how much it exercises. The best of the best (which can cost up to 1500 euros per leg) comes from a pig who has been allowed to roam freely in a special forest of acorn trees, eating acorns (and ONLY acorns) all day. The next level down comes from a pig who has been allowed to run around a bit, but has been fed a mixture of acorns and grains. The cheapest Iberico comes from a pig who is not free, and who is only grain-fed, no acorns. Poor pig.
Jamón serrano comes from the regular everyday pink (or white) porc. There is a difference, but its hard to describe. I’d say the most notable thing is the texture. It’s closer to proscuitto in the sense that its got a bit more fat, but I honestly have not been able to taste a big difference. Maybe that’s because I’ve never had the best of the best jamón yet. Maybe one day a rich man will offer me a leg of first grade jamón iberico. Until then, I’m going to have to settle for my slices of plain old jamón. Not that that’s settling at all, this stuff is amazing!! And to top it all off, spaniards say that the fat from the jamon is the good kind of fat (whatever that means) and Spanish grandmothers swear that is actually a very healthy thing to eat! Hooray!
My name is Laurence, and I came to live in Madrid back in September 2009. Since then I have been discovering (and dealing with) Spanish food, traditions, culture and people.
April 16th, 2010 at 19:28
j’ai l’eau à la bouche! Keep posting laurence !
April 17th, 2010 at 00:28
Miam ! Encore un article intéressant… t’as du talent. Les photos aussi sont très belles.
April 17th, 2010 at 20:02
Il faudrait maintenant que tu goûtes aux percebes et nous en fasses un rapport.
April 22nd, 2010 at 18:24
Appetizing blog! Good job!
Do you know de name of the first grade of “jamon ibérico”? It´s “five J”.
Do you know why?
Because when you taste a bit of that, always exclaim: “joder, joder, joder, joder, joder!”
P.S. There is a “black leg (pata negra en español)acorn jamón” in my home. Tell me date and hour to taste it.
May 2nd, 2010 at 19:44
Ah, so you had the Jamón experience, already, eh?
My greek wife freaked out when we passed in front of a store with at least 30 legs all lined out and hanging from the hooks. It took me a while to explain and a bit more for it to sit and realize that we’re not, in fact, sadic bastards that hang chopped bits of animals for sport.
However, I must say, there’s not really a big “discussion” on terms of which is better. Serrano has nothing to do against the holy Ibérico (or Iberian). No freaking way.
If you need to taste the good stuff witout buying the whole thing, just go to a Pantagruel or a shop like that, where they’ll happily sell you 100 .gr of the best quality for an outrages amount of money. But it’ll be worth it, I promise.
Also don’t forget to try “lomito” and high quality “chorizo”. That stuff is almost unbeatable.
And greets to your spaniard bf.
June 8th, 2010 at 20:09
[...] because there is a lot to write about spanish eggs! These eggs in particular were scrambled with jamón ibérico and asparagus, wrapped in a crunchy crouton. YUM! Just look at that amazing [...]
June 14th, 2010 at 00:26
Jean-René nou visite cette semaine et me demandait si tu connaissais le Patta Negra. Il parait qu’il est encore meilleurs que le Iberico. Donnes nous en des nouvelles.
June 15th, 2010 at 10:33
Actually one of the characteristics of Iberian Pig (“cerdo ibérico”) is the fact that their hoof is black, and that’s from where they get the nickname “Pata Negra” (“Black Leg”).
Thus, “pata negra” and “ibérico” are not different things
June 15th, 2010 at 14:54
Uff, we have been an hour discussing at work. This is the explanation we have agreed on:
-”Pata Negra” is a name given to Jamón by folks, although the Ministry has forbidden to use it because of the confusion it brings, since
a)There are kinds of Iberian Pig whose hoof is NOT black
b)There are other races of pigs, such as duroc or duroc-jersey, that also present the black hoof, althoug the pig’s caracteristics are “not comparable” according to our sources.
According to our panelists, it may be true that the “pata negra” has a different taste, although it is NOT a quality measure since it doesn’t consider the rest of characteristics of the pig and its growth.
FYI: I didn’t know this was such an interesting polemic.
September 9th, 2010 at 01:00
hey, nice blog…really like it and added to bookmarks. keep up with good work