Jamón Ibérico Bellota
Mar 7, 2008 groceries
The minute I heard that the Wine Merchant had gotten in Jamón Ibérico Bellota a couple weeks ago I raised the question: shoulder or ham?
You see, until recently, Jamón Ibérico Bellota was not exported from Spain as it was the finest of their Jamón and they consumed it all. Because Jamón is one of my favorite hams, and I had always wanted to taste the very finest example, I’d been following the news closely that it would soon be available in the US and was shocked when Annie posted the news and answered my question that it was, in fact, the shoulder as I had suspected.
Many people quickly sum up what this ham is by saying that it is made from hogs that feed on acorns. While true it is a bit of an oversimplification of what these hogs represent.
To at least attempt to further explain what it is for you, I’ve cribbed some info from wikipedia which has a surprisingly good entry on Iberico.
Jamón Ibérico is a type of Jamón, a cured ham produced only in Spain. It is at least 75% Black Iberian Pig…the only breed of pig that naturally seeks and eats mainly acorns.
The Black Iberian Pig lives primarily in the south and southwest parts of Spain. Immediately after weaning the piglets are fattened on barley and maize for several weeks. The pigs are then allowed to roam in pasture and oak groves to feed naturally on grass, herbs, acorns, and roots, until the slaughtering time approaches.
The finest Jamón Ibérico is called Jamón Ibérico de Bellota (acorn). This ham is from free-range pigs that roam oak forests (called la dehesa) along the southern border between Spain and Portugal, and eat only acorns during this last period.
The importer of Jamón Ibérico is La Tienda a Spanish Food importer based out of New York, and although their information on the Iberico is also quite good, it is obviously written in a bit more of a sales pitch method as they stand to profit from a great deal from your ponying up large sums of your hard earned cash to purchase even a few slices of their ham.
Also, if you’ve ever seen the Culinaria series of books, the book for Spain is probably the best of the books I’ve laid hands on, and while that might just be my love of Spanish food talking, it has some excellent photographs of the Ibérico hams. If you’re in your local Borders, cruise on over to the cut-out books because I’ve seen them a lot lately.
But of course the real question is how does it taste?
In a word, amazing.
Every so often you eat something that strikes some sort of cord with you deep within your soul. The moment I sampled the Ibérico at the Wine Merchant it instantly took me back to being a kid and tasting an acorn under the uniquely childish assumption that if the squirrels ate them all the time, then they must be good.
Unfortunately, as anyone else who’s made that mistake would know, raw acorns leave a little something to be desired, and as their startlingly sharp astringency hit me I realized that they were not only not good, they were awful.
This made the Ibérico all the more striking because it really does taste strongly of acorns, and on that first bite I was immediately struck by the prominent acorn astringency. Rather then lingering, however, and ruining the flavor of the ham, the astringency marries itself with the buttery fat of the ham.
Honestly, I just don’t know how to describe it. You simply have to taste it for yourself because any words I can think of simply don’t do it justice.
Now lucky for Kevin Willmann and his staff at Erato, we decided to take him a few slices because we knew he and his sous chef Jon would be equally excited. During service I handed it to him and he asked if it needed to be refrigerated. I forget what I said, but it was something to the effect of “it would never last that long once you taste it.”
I mention it not to drop his name but because of a conversation he and I later had that evening. He thought almost precisely the same thing I did and related a story about how the moment he tasted it it took him back to being a kid playing under an oak tree with his toys.
It is one of the most amazing food products I have ever tasted, and unlike any other cured pork product I have ever had, even at $15 for the .09 pounds I bought, it is worth every penny as it is the kind of thing you should only eat alone savoring each bite so as to fully appreciate its quality.
I’ve already been back for more, and I absolutely can not wait to try the true hams (not shoulder) once they are finished curing and imported into America.
Tags: Erato on Main, Jamón, Kevin Willmann, The Wine Merchant
