Salamanca ham

At the Restaurante Don Mauro in the main square at Salamanca — the north western Spanish town once ruled by the Celts and Romans — we sit under the stone eyes of Teresa of Avila and Miguel Cervantes as our waiter follows up cheese croquettas and duck salad with a platter of finely sliced chorizo, salchichon, lomo and jamón — this is no ordinary ham; it is jamón ibérico from black pigs or wild boar. I am advised to let the ham sweat a little before eating it to release its fats. Sliced paper-thin, this is chewy, soft, smooth, salty, and clean — a complex, incredibly light mouth feel difficult to describe, but quite addictive. I later read that the distinct taste comes from the oleic acid-rich acorns that the pigs have been fed. I think the mountain air adds to it too.

Just to digress a bit, in Spain, hams have their own DOs i.e., labels of origin and classifications from bodega to reserva and grand reserva (aged five years). Within ibérico hams, jamón ibérico bellota signifies that you are having the true champagne of hams. Bellota is Spanish for acorns and to make this cut (it gets a Black Label status) purebred black pigs, that are fed acorns, are allowed to roam free in oak forests in the mountains. Their ham is cured and dried in mountain air for a few months up to five years, and is amongst the great hams of the world along with Parma from Italy and Bayonne from France.