Woolworths_Taste_July_2017

TRAVEL
JAMÓN
JAMÓN!
The area around the Spanish
town of Guijuelo has produced
delicately flavoured jamon
Iberico de bellota for centuries.
NARINA EXELBY took a road
trip from Madrid to find out
why it’s so highly prized by
the world’s chefs
PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT
NARINA EXELBY
104
“HOW DO YOU SAY, ‘Can I please
have a Parma ham sandwich?’ in Spanish?”
I asked my partner, Mark, as we drove west
across Spain from Madrid towards Portugal.
He threw me a worried look. “Don’t even
joke,” he cautioned. “That’s like asking for
Italian wine in Stellenbosch. They might
throw us out of town.”
In Guijuelo, where we’re headed,
ham is serious business. While it’s been
produced here since the Middle Ages, over
the past 100 years or so the industry has
exploded and now drives the economy
of the region. There are odes to pigs and
ham everywhere you look, from statues
to posters, hand-painted signs to fridge
“IT’S THE ACORNS
OF HOLM OAK AND
CORK TREES THAT
FORM THE PRIMARY
DIET FOR IBERIAN
PIGS, GIVING THEIR
MEAT A DELICATE
NUTTY FLAVOUR”
magnets and keyrings; and behind the
counter of almost every bar and café hang
plump, black-hooved hams. Black, because
one of the hams this town produces is the
sweet, delicately nutty-flavoured jamón
Ibérico de bellota – the Champagne of
Spanish ham – that can fetch more
than 1 000 euros apiece, and the reason
for our road trip.
Locals will tell you it’s patience that
makes this ham so special. They’re partly
right – it can take four or five years to
produce – but it also comes down to this:
the intricate relationship between the
black Iberian pig, the climate and the wild
woodland of ancient Spain.
JAMÓN IBÉRICO, OR IBERIAN HAM,
comes from pigs that are at least 75%
Iberian breed, a rare variety found only on
the Iberian Peninsula, and mostly along
the western fringe of Spain. Iberian pigs
have the capacity to store fat within muscle
tissue – and it’s this fat that makes the ham
so tasty. Also, this breed’s ability to pack on
epidermal fat means the ham can be cured
for much longer than others, allowing
the characteristic sweet, intense flavour
of jamón Ibérico to develop fully.
Guijuelo is where the ham is produced,
not where the pigs are farmed, so to find
the dehesa we drove even further west,
searching for oak trees. Dehesa are the
wild, natural ancient foraging grounds for
Iberian pigs, and they provide the crucial
ingredient for jamón Ibérico de bellota.
“Bellota” means acorn, and it’s the acorns
of holm oak and cork trees that form the
primary diet for Iberian pigs, giving their
meat a delicate nutty flavour.
Vincente Martin Perez’s family has
farmed Ibérico pigs for decades, and his
land close to the Portuguese border is
more like a luxury getaway for the animals
than a pig farm. Here, Ibérico pigs roam
PHOTOGRAPHS (OPENING SPREAD)
MARTINA GARDINER, GETTY IMAGES
EXTRA SOURCES JAMON.COM