It's More Than Ham

We ducked into a small eatery near Plaza Mayor in Madrid for a quick bite.  Tapas would be our choice.  Tapas are small servings of food something akin to an hors d’oeuvre but larger.  Like most restaurants, the place was small with a lunch counter and a few small tables. What caught my attention was a large number of hams hanging from the ceiling. There were   at least twenty-five hams with small cups attached to the large end of the ham to catch any drainage from the meat.  On the counter Is a curious device  in which a ham is secured.  The device allows a man to cut thin slivers of the meat in the direction of the grain.  The man carving the ham noticed my curious stare and offered me a sample of the meat. The thin meat was very tasty but slightly chewy. And a bit salty for me. This was the famous jamon, Spanish ham.

Having grown up on a farm I was familiar with salt cured meat but it was different from this.  As a farm boy we would simply rub the fresh butchered ham with salt until it would absorb no more, then hang the ham in the smokehouse until we would slice off some for cooking. The meat was extremely salty and hard as a rock when fried but was good with grits and eggs for breakfast. Spanish ham is salt cured as well and is sold in different grades. The determining factors are the process, the breed of hog and the diet of the swine.  The meat is cured by covering it with a specific amount of salt for a given time then the ham is washed and hung to dry. It can be air dried for one year to forty-eight months. An expert determines when the jamon is ready to eat by taking a core sample of the meat. Different breeds of pigs are used, but the most preferred are the black ones. The most expensive jamon, approximately $95 per lb., comes from black pigs fed a diet of acorns foraged from forests of oak trees. 

We found that, except on the coast of Spain, jamon was always the featured meat in restaurants. I never sampled the expensive jamon but can vouch for the less expensive with tomatoes, olive oil, and herbs on toasted bread. It was delicious! In Madrid we did visit Museo de Jamon. The museum had a great bag lunch of a sandwich, soda and a piece of fruit for only two euros!