[Sca-cooks] Serrano hams

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Sun Nov 14 15:38:48 PST 2010


Suey replied to my questions about Serrano hams.

<<< The Spanish "serrano" means "from the mountains" so we have that 
kind of ham. That from Huelva (southern Spain from where Columbus said 
to America), in particular is called "pata negra," meaning black foot 
for the best serrano ham in Spain. The pigs have black feet from the 
dirt they pick up roaming the forests.>>>

Okay, wandering, not digging in the forests. So I guess all four feet get blackened and not just the digging ones.

But, Wow!  Wonderful information. Thank you.  I was thinking more about medieval times. It is interesting that much of it is still done that way. And I certainly didn't expect a first-hand report on much of this.

I also did not know the nose rings in pigs were to keep them from digging. I assumed they were from sort of control or for leading them on a tether. 

Salt is fairly cheap these days. In medieval times though it had much large taxes on it. So you can probably be a bit more wasteful than the producers could in medieval times. Sea salt was typically used in medieval times because the grains were larger and with the higher level of impurities it was cheaper.  Did/does your family still principally use sea salt for these hams?

It's also interesting that you mention both bitter and sweeter acorns. I have heard that the North American acorns tend to be bitter and the European ones sweeter. I hadn't realized that even then it still might vary from acorn to acorn in Europe.

I'm not sure how the snow in Granada preserves the hams, other than by refrigeration. Once it gets warmer in the spring, wouldn't you then still have to eat them fast before they go bad? Or do the hams get dried out in the process of being buried in the snow?

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****





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