The deep reverence and long tradition in curing pork products is hard to overstate. These can be a single cut—like a leg, shoulder, or tenderloin—though they are often a ground blend of parts seasoned and stuffed into natural intestinal casing. Such practices date back to, or even before, the time when the Romans ruled Spain (218 BCE to 409 CE). Cured legs of ham from Extremadura might be shipped to Tokyo and (at last!) New York today, but 2,000 years ago they were sent across the Roman Empire.
These traditions have remained hugely important in part because of the abundance of pork over the centuries. How to utilize the whole animal, and keep it—in the time before refrigeration and freezing—before it could go bad? From this came a range of embutidos—the general name for products cured this way—that often have strong regional differences.
While most embutidos can be considered curados (dry-cured), such as the well-known legs of jamón, there are also a number that are cocidos (literally “cooked”).
The principal dry-cured embutidos include:
chistorra A thin, soft paprika-red sausage that is only lightly cured. A specialty in Navarra and the Basque country, chistorra is usually fried in olive oil and served in a small terra-cotta casserole dish or else skewered to a piece of bread with a toothpick and eaten as a tapa.
chorizo An emblematic sausage with spices including pimentón (paprika), which gives it its distinctive red color and smoky flavor. One of the most popular embutidos in the country. A specialty of La Rioja and Pamplona. Note that Mexican chorizo is unsmoked and usually fresh rather than cured, the pork is ground and not chopped, and the texture moister and softer than its firm Spanish cousin.
fuet Typically Catalan, this dense sausage flavored with black pepper usually measures about 12 inches/30 cm in length and about 1 inch/2.5 cm in diameter. A white mold forms on the outside.
jamón (curado) A cured leg of ham, specifically the thicker, choice back leg, is the jamón, while the front leg (the shoulder) is the smaller paleta. Curing is done with both the standard “white” (serrano) pig and the black-footed Iberian pig. Jamón serrano and jamón del país denote less-expensive versions from common pigs, while jamón ibérico is produced from the Iberian breed. Slices of the latter have a wonderful marbling, lusher taste, and are significantly more expensive. (See page 133 for more on jamón ibérico.)
lomo embuchado or caña de lomo The long, thick tenderloin is first marinated in an adobo sauce seasoned with garlic, salt, paprika, marjoram, nutmeg, and other spices. After draining and drying, it is matured for at least two months. It is lean, exquisite, and very expensive (especially when it comes from an Iberian pig).
salchichón A firm sausage, slightly thicker than fuet, that often includes whole black peppercorns in the ground mixture. Aragón, Zamora, and Vic (in the Montseny region of the Pre-Pyrenees mountains) have well-known versions.
sobrassada A soft, spreadable minced pork sausage with characteristic deep red color, aromas, and flavors from smoky pimentón (paprika). Found across the Balearic islands, most famously in Mallorca.