El  jamon serrano, tradicion espanola

Naturally raised pigs and mountain ham have been an essential part of Spanish culture for centuries. They also occupy an illustrious position in our gastronomy. Some 38.5 million hams and forelegs of pork are cured in Spain every year, and the average Spanish individual eats an average five kilos of ham each year. Its great versatility as an ingredient makes it a key feature of many appetizers  ( accompanied by a good red wine it is exquisite ) as well as canapes, sandwiches, snacks and innumerable recipes.

Perhaps its culinary success is due to the fact that with the Spanish country and mountain raised pig, virtually everything is used in cooking, even the nose, ears and feet. For centuries, pork was the symbolic dish of royalty, nobility and the privileged; nowadays in the countryside, all of the family aspire to join in the matanza , the celebratory slaughter, of a pig at the festival of San Martin.

The pig is thought to be one of the first animals that early humans domesticated for food, and it has accompanied the history of man, and food, throughout history. Thus it has been one of the essentials in the kitchens of almost every culture. Spain s prehistoric Celtic culture considered pork fundamental to life and indispensable in the CeltoIberian diet. Pigs, and pork, were central to the diet that maintained Spain s first expeditions to the Americas.

There are distinct species of pig: white pigs, Iberian pigs, or pigs interbred between the two, from which different types of pork products are made, many specific to a breed of pig. The meat and meat products from pigs reared on fodder are utterly different to those from pigs reared with the famous acorn diet.

The stages of salting and curing jamon serrano, ham from the mountain, and other pork meats and products that we use today, are a tradition that reaches back into antiquity. The aim of these techniques is to achieve an optimum condition of preservation. Nowadays, these techniques have been refined to a stage that the process actually improves the quality of the meats, and today the animal is quartered using traditional butcher s techniques and the parts are salted. In ancient times, the animal would be salted and preserved whole.

Just as there are different types of pig, so there are different types of ham and it is important to understand the distinctions between jamon iberico, jamon serrano and prosciutto italiano.

Jamon iberico

Jamon iberico comes from a unique breed of pig, bred on the Iberian peninsula for thousands of years. Producers have to prove that the animal has at least a 50 per cent "purity of Iberian origin for it to obtain the premium denomination of Iberico. As described earlier, Jamon Iberico is classified according to the foods on which it was raised, and under these classifications:

Jamon de recebo: from pigs who after a period of time ranging in the countryside and consuming a diet chiefly of acorns (meaning mountain pigs, pastured between November and March) but which have not reached their average weight so need a supplementary diet of cereals and pulses to reach their ideal weight.

Jamon de cebo, or finished (as in feeding) in the countryside. These pigs are pastured in the countryside in their final period of raising, and fed on cereals and pulses. The quality of meat is, therefore, less than that of other varieties.

Jamon de bellota: this is considered to be the greatest quality of all pork meats, and during the fattening period in the mountains the pigs feed solely on acorns and grasses. The proportion of acorns in the diet is directly linked to the quality of the meat. Among these, there are five groups catalogued as one, two, three, four or five acorn classes of meat, and it follows that the last catalogue is the most exclusive and expensive of all hams.

Another factor to be considered is the curing process itself, which lasts between 24 and 36 months and has to be undertaken in specific temperature and humidity conditions relative to that part of the mountains, even though nowadays industrial curing processes are able to reproduce the natural conditions, if not the effect, of almost any local curing process.

Depending on the region they originate from, we can distinguish seven types of Iberian ham:

Jamon de Huelva Developed in the mountains of Huelva in western Andalucia, in unique microclimates where the pigs are raised free in the meadow. The well-known jamon de Jabugo is one such ham.

Jamon iberico de Los Pedroches  

Ham from pigs raised in the countryside around Cordoba.

Jamon de Guijuelo  

A form of ham from pigs raised in the mountain ranges of Gredos in central Spain, Bejar in Salamanca, Castilla and Leon, Extremadura, Andalucia and Castilla-La Mancha. 

Jamon de la Dehesa de Extremadura.

A very well-known ham of great quality. The region of production is in the pastures of acorn and cork oaks of Caceres and Badajoz, where the animal diet is based on acorns. This has probably the strictest system of Denominacion de Origin controls, referring as much to the conditions in which the pigs are kept as to the methods of production.

Jamon iberico De Alentejo,

comes from Portugal. It produces less ham than jamon Iberico, and is still little known.

Jamon Pata Negra.

This famous ham gets its name from the colour of the pig s hoof. The colour is unrelated to the excellent quality of the ham; it occurs due to the natural protein keratin found in the hoof and other parts of the animal.

Jamon de Jabugo.

Comes exclusively from the town of Jabugo,  north-east of the city of Huelva on Andalucia s Atlantic coast. Nowadays it is denominated as Jamon de Huelva.

Jamon serrano

That which we define as  jamon serrano and also as jamon blanco is ham that comes from any other breed of pig, normally crosses of breeds such as Landrace, Duroc-Jersey, Large White and Blanco Belga. These white pigs are fed with natural fodder, based on cereals. Their breeding is tightly controlled up to the moment of slaughter, usually around five or six months, at an approximate weight of 95 kilos.

It is called "serrano , or mountain, ham, because traditionally the meat is cured in areas with a mountain climate, cold and dry.

The best known are:

                     Jamon de Teruel.

These hams have a minimum curing and maturing period of one year.

                      Jamon de Trevelez.

These are produced in the mountains around Trevelez, in the Alpujarras south-east of Granada, with an altitude of over 1,200m above sea level. They have a period of natural curing and ageing between 14 and 24 months. The ham is produced in a number of ways; in individual cuts, boned, chopped, sliced, and also in air-tight sealed packaging.

In Spain there are many more regions that also produce jamon blanco.

NUTRITIONAL PROPERTIES

From a nutritional point of view, the process of modification of the proteins and fats in curing makes Spanish ham a light foodstuff, high in proteins and low in fats in its fresh form. The proteins are also high quality, that is to say, containing all of the essential amino acids (100gr of jamon serrano is equivalent to a third of the recommended daily intake of proteins). It is also a healthy form of protein intake and good for the digestive system. It contains unsaturated fats and is rich in vitamins B1 and B6, phosphorus, iron, potassium and zinc. Despite being cured in salt, its salt content is in fact very low.