A thin, nearly transparent slice of free-range, acorn-fed, and dry-cured Iberian jamón is surely Spain’s most celebrated and delectable treat. Richly marbled with fat, deep ruddy red in color, and having a pleasant texture that is almost creamy in softness, its husky, marvelously nutty flavors just linger and linger.
Such perfection comes from a handful of specific factors that make it virtually unduplicated outside Spain. The first is the landscape, the dehesas where the pigs roam and forage. A dehesa is a pastureland planted with acorn-bearing holm oak and cork trees. It’s not forest and not prairieland, but a mix, an airy space of wild grasses and tubers dotted with spacious, tightly foliaged trees. Dehesas cover some 9 million acres/3½> million hectares in the southwest of Spain. The cork produces about a quarter of the world’s supply of wine corks.
The second factor is the animal itself. An ancestor of the wild boar, the black-footed Iberian pig is indigenous to Spain. Breeds of cerdos blancos (white pigs) have only been on the peninsula for the last few centuries and produce jamón serrano (Serrano ham). The darker Iberian pig has a longer snout, shorter, more slender legs, and more fat that tunnels through the muscle than its pinker relative, while their black hooves have given them the nickname pata negra (black foot).
The crucial stage in their rearing is the last one known as the montanera, the three or four final months of their lives when they rummage the ground for herbs, roots, aromatic grasses, and, most importantly, fallen acorns. Able to eat more than 20 pounds/9 kg of acorns a day and over 6 pounds/3 kg of grasses, they gain a staggering 2 pounds/1 kg a day, doubling in weight during this phase that runs some time between October into February or March. By the time the pigs head for the slaughterhouse, they weigh 375 to 420 pounds/170 to 190 kg. Indeed, the acorn is fattening, but it also contains a high percentage of oleic acids—the same as found in olive oil—which makes its way into the fat of the pigs.
To be clear, though, not all Iberian pigs are lucky enough to subsist solely on acorns for the last part of their lives. Pigs that have eaten only acorns during this montanera phase are known as jamón ibérico de bellota—the top, and most expensive. Jamón ibérico de recebo means that the pigs have had a mixed diet of acorns and grains during the last phase of life, and that they have gained only around 50 percent of their weight by eating acorns. And jamón ibérico de cebo are Iberian pigs that have been completely reared on a diet of grains and feed.
The third part of the equation is the curing, a process little changed since the days of the Romans. The hind legs, the most prized, are the jamónes, and the front shoulders are paletas, which are thinner, cured for a shorter time, and less expensive. A jamón weighs about 33 pounds/15 kg and, as one owner of a curing house told me, “Tradition says it needs to be salted for one day per kilo plus one more day.” Cleaned, lard spread over the exposed cut, and a rope looped around the hoof, they’re hung for two or even three years in cool cellars known as secaderos to slowly dry in the mountain air. (The best of the best can cure for as long as five years.) The final weight of a jamón is around 15 pounds/8 kg. The best ones can sell whole for well over $500, some even approaching double that amount.
The most famous jamón is produced by a quartet of regions under registered designation of origin seals and strict guidelines: Guijuelo (near Salamanca), Jamón de Huelva (the best known is from Jabugo), Jamón del Valle de Los Pedroches (from Córdoba), and Jamón de Trévelez (in the Sierra Nevada near Granada).
Hand-sliced paper thin using long, razor-sharp knives, the jamón is pure, natural, and simple excellence.