Consumption of beef in Spain is among the lowest per capita in Europe. My own theory is that this is for a handful of reasons. First is the excellent pork and lamb available—Spain is a top European producer of both of these; only Germany raises more pigs and Britain more sheep—as well as high-quality rabbit and poultry. Just as significant is the vast quantity of seafood. The Spanish are among the world’s biggest consumers of fish and shellfish. And pulses are extremely important. All of this is a way of saying there is a balance in the diet and plenty of other ways to get protein. Besides, Spain was poor for much of the twentieth century, and beef was comparatively expensive.
And of course there is the fact that much of the country is arid, with vast regions lacking grasslands or suitable terrain. This has focused the beef industry to a handful of pockets, namely in the mountain areas of the central meseta and in the north. In the past years, ten different regions have been awarded protective regulatory status for their cattle, often local, autochthonous breeds like the long-horned Tudanca from Cantabria and muscular, grayish black Morucha from Salamanca.
I should say something about beef terminology in Spanish. Ternera means veal and usually refers to a younger animal less than one year old. (Sometimes they are older. For instance, under the Basque Country’s guidelines for Protected Geographic Indication Euskal Okela, ternera can mean from eight to twenty months.) Ternera lechal is milk-fed veal, more similar to the pale pink veal in the English and American tradition. Buey means ox, a castrated bull whose meat is slightly darker, deeper red, and more flavorful. Uncastrated bulls are called toros, and its meat is something of a specialty. It tends to be tougher and require longer cooking.
For many, the animal most associated with the Spanish countryside is the sheep. The image of flocks of sheep moving across a barren hillside remains an iconic one. Roasted, stewed, or grilled, lamb is a fine, flavorful meat, fatty (therefore usually moist) and aromatic, and fundamental in the kitchen.
In some places—take the mountainous, often rugged province of Guadalajara in Castilla–La Mancha—cabrito (or choto, kid goat) takes pride of place on many people’s tables. They are small, tender, and delicately flavored, and especially appreciated in winter and spring.
But it’s the pig that is arguably the most important four-footed animal in the Spanish kitchen—and on the farm.
Fresh pork and pork sausages are found in numerous dishes. Among cuts, center-cut loins are prized. When buying loin, I nearly always ask for the blade or butt end, which stays moister as it cooks. In Spanish, it is referred to as the end of dos colores (two colors). The blade end has a near-S-shaped division of leaner whiter meat and darker, fattier meat, which is more tender. My favorite way to prepare this is to roast it in a salt crust (see page 245), where it literally cooks in its own juices, and comes out gamey, almost wild, as opposed to salty.
Cuarenta sabores tiene el cerdo y todos son buenos, goes one saying: “The pig has forty flavors and they are all tasty.”
