The Best Spanish Jamon
Gran Reserva Jamon Iberico de Bellota: Choosing the Best Jamon
One of Spain's most eaten products, jamon can be found in every home and many still raise their own pig to produce their year-round supply of jamon and chorizo.
If you think a pig is a pig and jamon is jamon then think again – you need a tasting session. The flavour, quality and price of jamon varies as greatly as bottles of wine.
In Spain jamon is pretty much a daily affair, but just as you wouldn’t raid your wine cellar (wishful thinking) for an ordinary affair, you would save the best for the best. And the best in jamons?
Jamon Iberico de Bellota is the Star
Jamon Iberico and for the Gran Reserva Jamon Iberico de Bellota – the star. Far from common, not freely available but top quality when you can get it!
The pigs that become Jamon Iberco live a free-range, hippy sort-of lifestyle. Contently they graze and laze under the Holm Oak trees of the region of Extremadura that borders Portugal, this harsh, dry and pretty much unhabited area (by humans) is also known as the “land of the pigs.”
The bellota or holm-oak acorns are rich in oils, and these infuse the meat with a unique flavour. The fat of the processed jamon is 55 % oleic acid, the same healthier monounsaturated fat that is found in olive oils.
Janet Mendel the author of six cookery books on Spanish cuisine says “90 percent of what makes this a superior ham has already been accomplished before the pig is even slaughtered. This is the real deal. It never gets better than Bellota." What a recommendation.
Black-Hoofed Pig or Pata Negra
The variety of pig bred for Jamon Iberico is also known as the black-hoofed pig or pata negra for the simple reason that they more often than not have a black leg. They have descended from the native wild boar that was once common in the Iberian Peninsula, and it’s said that Christopher Columbus took some of them on the Santa Maria when he left Spain on his voyages to discover the New World.
The pigs live a life luxury, they may sleep rough and out in the open but this luxurious living enables a natural and ample diet, they roam and forage grassland with holm oak and cork trees for about two years, eating around 20 pounds of acorns a day and enabling them to put on 2 pounds a day leading up to their last winter.
After slaughter and a vet’s inspection the legs are processed by salting and drying for months before being hung to age for two to four years to allow the maturing process and flavour to develop.
Different Types of Spanish Jamon
- Iberico Bellota - best-quality Iberico, there are four Denominations of Origens in southwestern Spain.
- Iberico - This jamon is produced from the Iberico pig that is fed on grain, also called pata negra.
- Serrano – a Spanish jamon made from ordinary pigs which is found in every tapas bar and restaurant.
