[Sca-cooks] Serrano hams

[Susan Lin]

I know it is a modern "source" with modern information but
latienda.com(yes, it is a catalog of food from Spain) has a nice bit
of informaiton on
Jamon Iberico, Jamon Serrano and Jamon Iberico de Bellota.

Shoshana

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 4:38 PM, Stefan li Rous
<StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>wrote:

> 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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