[Sca-cooks] Serrano hams

Suey lordhunt at gmail.com
Mon Nov 15 16:36:26 PST 2010


This reply is long so save it for another day is you have no time -

I think I explained. The last Thursday of January we slaughter 5 pigs in 
a town called Mostoles just outside Madrid. The method for doing this 
has not changed since the Middle Ages or before. We slaughter five pigs 
Thursday morning, hang them on trees to bleed them, have a traditional 
lunch recipes dating from the Middle Ages with our workers. The 
slaughter man cut sections of meat for us and we cut it up further - mix 
it with other ingredients and make sausages after cleaning the intestine 
cases inside and out cause will stuff the mixtures into them so we don't 
any you know what in them, tie them, prick them and fry them on 
Saturday, the day of the big feast.
     On Friday, we continue preparing the meats especially the hams. Its 
a just as long as Thursday. On Friday night we went into the house and 
looked out the bay window. There was a crescent moon lighting the sky. A 
dozen ducks circled it and swooped down to a little island we have on a 
little lake outside the dinning room window. They ate all the grain we 
had left for them there and they stayed for ever.
     On Saturday about 250 guests come. We serve little grilled ribs, 
lots of warm sausages and lots of other products that we make during the 
two days of the slaughter. Then we offer a buffet luncheon with roast 
hams, vegetables of the season grown on the estate. Desserts also are in 
period.
     I love photographing what we do. It is passionate. A few years ago, 
I finished working Friday night and took rolls of film to Kodak. They 
had it ready for me in no time. I put all the photos into an album. 
Saturday, my album was at the cocktail before luncheon. I overheard a 
woman say, "No, I think they get it all out of El Corte Inglés (the 
Macys of Spain). I whipped the album out from under my arm and said - Oh 
really? Well why don't you have a look at this? - It showed every step 
of the way of how the pig was brought out from the shed, laid on the 
table and the aorta cut: it showed the muscles of the slaughter man - 
those that only Caravaggio could paint!-  Not only was it a passionate 
slaughter, it showed all of us working for two days cutting, mixing and 
making what went into the big banquet!

Thank you all very much who send me queries and all like Susan and 
Mark's below. They help me so much. I feel like I have been living in a 
space as small as a confessional for the last 20 years while working on 
my project. I have lost contact with what people want to know. The 
comments below are vital for me in my attempt to improve my work:

Susan Lin wrote:
> 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
>> Suey replied to Stefan's 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 sailed
>> 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.>>>
Stefan:
>> 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?
Prior to going to the wait in  the doctor's office this p.m. I printed 
out the above and as you can see the wait was long cause I broken down 
Susan and Stefan's queries to with the idea of working more on these 
subjects and my conclusions are that I must explain further:

     pig feed - acorn sweet and bitter ones in Spain

     The history of the slaughter of farm animals in medieval times
     The art of the slaughter man

     Processing pork products:
         hams:
                 Iberian ham
                 Serrano ham
                 Iberian acorn ham, pata negra for me  (black hoof in 
English)
         sausages - black, red, white - no blue!
         offals, cheese heads and other products from the pig concerning 
food (lets not get into the hair brush!)

SALT: Stefan brings up the salt tax. I would have to look that up but my 
gut feeling is that we did not have it in the Middle Ages. One must 
remember that Spain is surrounded by ocean on three sides plus the 
Canary Islands so salt was never a problem for us until Philip II made 
it so by taxing the Dutch for our product. When he applied the salt tax 
to those people he lost that country. For me Philip II is 100 years 
after the Middle Ages. Yes, France had problems but as I do not study 
French history I cannot tell you what those problems were - if they 
existed in the Middle Ages or if that came up later.

(Aside from my not having the problem in Spain, this must be great 
material for writing a book especially for those of you who study 
France, Holland and Belgium. As we have always had salt in Spain we to 
not realize that salt is as necessary as is water!)

SNOW in Granada: Yes, instead of placing the hind legs of the 
slaughtered pig in a bed of salt, in Granada they are placed in snow. 
There is a misconception about Granada. Yes it is in Andalusia, the 
south of Spain but Granada has very high mountains within minutes from 
the city and much better than those outside Madrid. One can ski in the 
morning and go to the beach in the afternoon. The ski season goes 
through Easter vacation. So back to our pig, we can kill him when the 
ski season begins or wait until 18 days before Easter vacation ends and 
still put his hind legs though the process of keeping them buried in 
snow using the same mathematical chart we use for salt. - Ok? - Now at 
the end of that time we take the legs out of the snow, just as we do 
with the salt, and hang them in the hanging house same as with the 
salted legs. -  So if we kill him in November or December, we have 
marvelous ham for Christmas a year from now!

GUARRO: filthy pig in English but the name of pigs raised for the 
slaughter in Spain. It has come to be a lovey name just like Wilbur in 
Charlotte's Web :-) !  I must say, however, Spaniards are a bit more 
realistic than English children's fairy tales. If an animal is raised to 
feed the family, he does just that. Imagine Christmas afternoon savoring 
Wilbur's ham from 2009 and sipping a nice wine!

Other Spanish words like "guarro" that make up dishes of the slaughter 
should be reviewed, studied and explained.

Suey



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