Culebronchris

Hamming it up!

My Spanish students have a lot of trouble with the English words jam and ham. Which is the one that comes from pigs and which is the fruit preserve? Just in case you’re not sure ham is the pig product.

Britons and Spaniards also have a different idea of a ham. Mention ham and Spanish people immediately think of a cured ham, similar to Parma ham, for which the catch all term is jamon serrano or mountain ham. Back in Huntingdonshire my mum would be thinking of boiled ham. Oddly the stuff we Britons are used to is called York Ham – Jamon York – in Spain.

When some English pals asked me yesterday how the jamon serrano ham was produced I realised I didn’t know. Now I do.

To paraphrase Mrs. Beaton first slaughter your pig and cut off its back legs. Next clean them up and then store the hams in big piles covered with salt for a couple of weeks. The salt both serves to preserve the meat and to draw off water. Next, the salt is washed off and the hams are hung for about six months. Finally, the hams are hung in a cool dry hanging sheds for between six and eighteen months. These drying sheds are typically high in the mountains, which is why the stuff is called mountain ham. The last phase is to eat it. So maybe a couple of years from gentle snuffling to plate.

The main factors that determine the quality and price of the ham are the type of pig and the food it eats.

There are basically two types of pig, the native black skinned Iberian beast, which produces the best quality ham, but only represents about 5% of the total production, and the more intensively reared white pigs like the Large White, Landrace, or Duroc strains and crosses.

The best hams come from Iberian pigs wandering around in the open air feeding and fattened on acorns in the oak groves along the southern half of the border between Spain and Portugal. But the best is also the slowest and most expensive way to produce the ham so the majority of ham you will come across is from the white pigs.

Just like the French and their Appellation contrôlée the Spanish have an organisation that acts as a quality control mechanism for lots of quality agricultural products. The Instituto Nacional de Denominaciones de Origin or INDO (which is normally abbreviated to D.O on the bottles and packets) certifies the origin, production methods and the general quality of things like wine, honey, olive oil and, of course, ham.

There are four recognised D.O. areas for ham.

The first is in the Province of Extremadura very close to Portugal where the ham comes from pure bred Iberian pigs, or Duroc crosses which are at least 75% Iberian bloodstock. There are several quality levels which depend on what the pigs eat and how good their bloodline is.

The second is in Salamanca province around Guijuelo. Again the pigs have to have at least 75% pure Iberian blood. There are two quality classes:  the best is Jamón Ibérico de bellota – from free range pigs that spend their lives eating acorns. The hams hung for sale are marked with a red band. Not quite so good (but still yummy in my opinion) is the Jamón Ibérico – free range pigs that are fattened up with concentrated feeds. Yellow band for these.

The third D.O. are is in the Province of Huelva in Andalucia also bordering on Portugal. The bloodstock requirements and quality differences are much as before.

The fourth and last area includes all of Teruel province though the air curing must take place at more than 800 metres to gain the D.O mark. There aren’t any Iberian pigs in Teruel  so all the hams are from white pigs and there are no cork-oak woods either so the little piggies eat commercial feed. It’s the climate that makes things “just right” for producing high quality ham.

Traditionally the wafer thin slices (though there is a modern trend to serve it in smaller chunkier pieces) of meat are cut directly from the ham which is stored at room temperature. You see the hams clamped into stands in the majority of Spanish bars. At home it usually comes in packets from the supermarket but even then the ham should be stored and served at room temperature. The ham tends to be served alone or maybe alternated with sliced cheese and, of course, some tasty bread.
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From Monóvar to Casablanca

I’m a bit of a sucker for links between ideas. Victor Laszlo in front of the band, “Play the Marseillaise, Play it!”, German officers singing – “Die Wacht am Rhein “, Rick nods, the band strikes up and everyone but everyone sings their lungs out. The Germans give up, defeated by a song, a song with history, a tune loaded with ideas.

A long way from Casablanca there’s a little museum operated by the social arm of the CAM savings bank in Monóvar dedicated to the writer José Martinez Ruiz better known by his pen name of Azorín. It isn’t the most exciting museum I’ve ever been to but it is free and something to occupy a few idle moments. Azorín was one of a group of writers called the Generation of ’98. They were supposedly scarred for life by the loss of the last remanants of the Spanish Empire in 1898 when the United States kicked Spain out of Cuba and the Phillipines. Apparently the whole of Spain was very upset. It influenced domestic policy for years to come.

A fair way from Monovar, in Cartagena, I was browsing the library shelves when I came across a book called Castilla by Azorín. It was free, something to occupy a few idle moments. The book was a series of essays several of which were about the coming of the railway to Spain. More accurately what the coming of railways made possible in Spain. Imagine the change. Suddenly 200 miles wasn’t an expedition of ten days on foot it was just seven hours sitting in relative comfort whilst watching the World pass by. For farmers and craftspeople they could suddenly move product, crops or livestock to new markets; horizons were widened.

Not far from Monovar, just by our house there’s a track with a battered sign on it that says “Via Pecuaria” it means something like Drovers Path. Some time ago, in 1273 to be precise, King Alfonso the Wise guaranteed the rights of cattle drovers and shepherds to shift their herds and  flocks along public rights of way without let or hindrance. Some of the bigger paths, the Cañadas Reales, had to be a minimum of 75 metres wide. It’s a system of tracks that reached 125,000kms at it’s peak and, even to this day, those rights of way are still protected. That’s why a flock of sheep bleats its way through the middle of Madrid every year just to prove they can if they want.

Now think of all those people over all that time walking or riding along all those paths. herd after herd, flock after flock going this way and that for hundreds of years, more until the coming of the railway changed the face of transportation and travel for ever. Think of the shepherd walking from Madrid and telling anyone who would listen along the way about the new King or the latest war. Maybe it was just gossip about the celebrities of the day, or new foods and fashions or, closer to home new farming techniques. From time to time the animals themselves were the news as new breeds of sheep, cattle and goats came munching and farting down the track. And disease of course – diseases from the New World walked that path as well as old favourites like plague, syphillis and cholera.

What an idea.
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A stop in Castilla La Mancha

It’s 4am. The bus is parked up in a service station. Just outside Albacete.  A group of weary travellers cluster around the door, talking to the driver, their fags like glow worms in the night.

The cafeteria area smells faintly of sick and bleach. It’s almost deserted, dozing – a woman scrutinising her finger nails at the cash desk a man with a broom and us. Sandwiches too tired, dry, expensive.

The man who’s been sitting next to me on the bus may well be Ethiopian or Somali – he looks like he’s from that part of Africa but as he speaks neither English nor Castilian I’ll never know. There are Moroccans too – lots of Moroccans and South Americans, mainly Ecuadorians.

In Albacete a man with a henna streaked beard, a hat made of carpet fabric, one of those long shirts, looking for all the world like someone in an Afghani Al Qaeda camp on the nine o’clock news and wearing the obligatory polyester anorak, got off the bus and disappeared into the night.

There are a few Spaniards too of course. No one looks rich to me. In fact, most look poor – dishevelled and tired. Like the plump woman with an ample backside inside tight black ski pants, high heels and with yellow accessories. An ensemble that screams market stall into the dark.

Four continents at least – continental drift.

I’m there too, lost in a strange country, another immigrant – the struggling poor.

At 4am on a bus bound for Madrid.
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Parador Hotels

Fancy staying in an old castle or monastery? Then one of the state chain of hotels, a Parador, may well be for you. Paradores are a product of a dictatorship in Spain, probably not the last one but the one before. The dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera that lasted from 1923 till 1930. Primo thought that well heeled tourists might come to Spain bringing plenty of spending money if there were somewhere pleasant and interesting for them to stay.

The first Parador was built in the Gredos mountain range and in some ways it’s a much more normal Parador than the stereotypical converted fortress or nunnery that hotel chain tend to use in their advertising nowadays. When we turned up there one dull, wet day the building looked like something from the Scottish Highlands. The original building has been added to so that parts are modern and parts are old. It’s been done with style – all wood, grey slate, overstuffed chairs and brass standard lamps but it is essentially new build.

The second Parador was built in 1929 in Ciudad Rodrigo a town that I lived in for a while. We used to take our guests there for a cup of coffee. It never failed to impress, a real 14th Century castle with battlements and halberds on the wall.

There are plenty of Paradores that are new but they are usually in splendid locations. Clipped lawns and large swimming pools overlooking the sea or halfway up some tree covered mountain. Nearly all of the hotels provide themed holidays or specialist packages – bird watching or painting here, mountaineering and folk dancing there. Christmas breaks, New Years celebrations and any other date on which they can hang an event.

I’ve only stayed in about four of five Paradores but I’ve eaten in or at least had a drink in lots more. In most of them the restaurant and bar staff will wear the traditional costume of the area and the restaurant will specialise in local food. The food and drink isn’t cheap but it isn’t outrageous either. They do veggie too as a matter of course. You can still get a menu Del dia for around 30€ though the drinks aren’t usually included. It’s the same with the rooms, pricey but not exorbitant especially if you hunt out one of the, always available, deals.

I like Paradores, they have a certain charm but they can be disappointing. The one in Albacete for instance I remember as looking like a builders cabin set in the middle of a wasteland. The coffee bar was littered with old napkins. We didn’t stay. The one in Ceuta, where we had a room, was blessed with terribly slow bar service and high quality but down at heel rooms. Often the bars are deserted and after the obligatory gawp at the oil paintings and coats of armour you begin to wonder if the bar is actually open. Nonetheless, when someone does come to serve you they will be highly apologetic and I’ve often thought that the staff make up for any deficiencies of the general management of these hotels.

Rooms vary; most are much like any modern hotel but some are terrific, designed to fit in with the ambience of the place – four poster beds, oil paintings and high, vaulted ceilings. The restaurants are nearly always good and usually pretty busy. It’s the sort of place that Spaniards take their Granny to celebrate her birthday, the sort of place where tourists wear linen trousers and Spaniards their chinos and Ben Sherman’s.

If you’re anywhere close to a Parador and you see the sign why not go and have a quick shufti. Decide for yourself.

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