How a black pig created an entire industry
Black Iberian pigs rooting for acorns under an idyllic grove of trees in a sunny landscape. This is the myth of the Spanish Ibérico ham.
Cured ham is made all over the world and isn’t necessarily expensive. But when people in Spain celebrate something important – or rich Chinese, Americans or Norwegians want to splurge – they often choose pata negra (black-hoofed) pigs from southern Spain for their celebrations.
Food anthropology is the branch of social anthropology that occupies NTNU Associate Professor Jan Ketil Simonsen. He heads a project that is exploring the cultural policies that Spain has implemented as cured ham production has grown from local small-scale operations to large-scale industrial production for the world market.
The exclusive and expensive Iberian ham is just the tip of a much larger industry.
“How food is produced and consumed provides insights into key social, cultural, economic and political processes in society,” says Simonsen.
He is joined in the project by NTNU colleague Lorenzo Cañás Bottos and Professor Peter I. Crawford from the University of Tromsø. Together they are creating ethnographic films of the project.
Pigs on hillsides
When the Iberian pig forages for its favourite food, acorns, the nutty flavour is absorbed into the fat. This breed of pig is unique because it stores fat in muscle tissue, producing the ham’s marbling and much sought-after sweet taste.
“Today local foods and food festivals abound, which may appeal especially to the urban population, like Iberian ham does.”
The 20th century was a painful century for both the Iberian pig and its oak forests. When the country switched to industrial meat production, many of the oak forests were cut down and turned into fields for grain cultivation for animal feed. In the 1960s, the Iberian pig population was afflicted with African swine fever, a viral disease.
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A guide to jamón ibérico
Simon Majumdar unravels the complexities of the time-honoured and exacting processes used to manufacture and label Spanish hams.
It was not the two perfectly fried eggs or the two slices of toast drizzled with olive oil tasting of freshly mown grass which made this one of my more memorable breakfasts. It was the small plate set in front of me by farm owner Felipe Perez Corcho which set my heart racing. It was filled with wafer thin slices of the ruby red wonder which is jamón ibérico de bellota, arguably the greatest item of food in the world. I pierced the soft, golden yolks of the egg with a slice of jamón and allowed it to sit on my tongue as the yellow ribbon of acorn-rich fat began dissolve into savoury bliss. Few food experiences have or ever will match it.
I had received an invitation from the good people of Brindisa, one of Britain’s finest importers of Spanish food, to join them on a visit to a new supplier of ibérico ham, Señorio De Montanera, and could hardly contain my excitement. Jamón ibérico has long been my favourite food of all, but I knew little about its production methods or the region in which the legendary ibérico pigs are raised. This was the perfect opportunity to fill that gap in my knowledge and came with the added bonus of an opportunity to eat my own bodyweight in ham.
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Old-World Hogs: One Farmer’s Quest to Bring Portugal’s Coveted Alentejo Ham to New Jersey
Crafted to stringent quality controls and centuries-old traditions, Italy’s prosciutto di Parma, Spain’s jamón ibérico, and Portugal’s presunto do Alentejo are among Europe’s most coveted artisanal, dry-cured hams. But while the gourmet delicacies from Italy and Spain can be imported for sale in the United States, Portugal’s exquisite presunto cannot. For that reason, Rodrigo Duarte, a Portuguese butcher trained in charcuterie and the science of meat, decided to make his own authentic presunto alentejano right here in the Garden State. But first, he had to make some VIPs—very important pigs—fly.
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