Jamon - what makes it sooooooo good?

We just paid a visit to 'Joselito' - Spain's leading producer of Jamon Iberico Belotta.

Joselito is the result of five generations of curing, and they have it down pat. They supply to all Spain's top restaurants, as well as various notables the world over; from the king of Denmark to Madonna, from Ferran Adria to Tetsuya Wakuda. 

What makes Joselito so good?

Generally speaking, pigs the world over are allocated roughly enough living space to accommodate them standing up. We all know this, and it is pretty terrible.

Joselito's pigs each have about four football fields to roam - happy pigs!

The average Iberian 'Patta Negra' pig is slaughtered at two years of age. After they are taken from their mums, they are fed on a mixture of grain, and for a few months before 'choppy choppy' are fed on acorns - belotta. 

Joselito's pigs, however, are fortunate to experience two 'montanero' - acorn seasons. Acorns, apart from imparting woody flavour into the meat, also perform a certain feat that is still largely a mystery despite intense scientific examination. The fat from a pig fed on acorns closely resembles olive oil - its chock full of good cholesterol - and is really good for your health. True.

Moving on - Joselito uses a completely natural curing process - no chemicals (the only to do so), and invariably this means the company does suffer a loss due to spoiling, but they can afford it; Joselito currently has 400,000 jamons curing, and they each net approx. $500 EU, that's $200,000,000 EU in stock. Laughing.

So after the jamons are cured in sea salt for a few days, they are washed off and hung to dry. Here is where I learnt something - look at the picture above, see the mould? The water used to wash the jamon contains bacteria, which in turn leads to mould. Here's the interesting bit - depending on where the jamon is processed it will host a specific mould endemic to that region, and it is the mould that imparts the most flavour into the meat. To demonstrate this point, Jose (the MD) led us through four different drying halls (they are massive) and drew our attention to the odour - it was amazing - each room had distinctive differences, the last was like dark bitter chocolate, like club if you know what that is. 

So, to reiterate - good pig + good process = good product. How good? Well, Joselito's best jamon is aged for nine years, and sells for about $12,000 EU apiece. 

Joselito also has a crazy Jamon slicing room. Called 'The White Room', it was designed to meet strict US import guidelines. More akin to an operating theatre, the white room has some unique features. Massive billow filters run the length of the ceiling, blowing in air so the room is always under positive pressure. That is to say, air only ever comes out, never goes in. Large rectangular cooling plates line the walls, keeping the atmosphere at a constant 5 degrees C, and a large plant (machine) runs from one end of the room to the other - it was fairly impressive. It featured a high intensity scanner (to check for imperfections within the jamon), and on passing the test, the jamon, would find itself looking down the barrel of a massive, pure titanium meat slicer. This thing was crazy, the cutting disc on it was the size of a car tyre. From here the jamon slices would roll along tracks to a vacuum packer. Italian made. Apparently they are the best when it comes to sucking. All this controlled via touch screen, no hands at any stage. I tell ya, it was a mechanical engineer's wet dream; big, shiny, hydraulically assisted, state of the art and expensive.

Me, i'll use a knife.

So our tour concluded, as they usually do, with a tasting. Did I mention that Joselito does good jamon? 

Yeah it's good, especially when you have a whole leg to get through - yeah - that's a six year old jamon, a whole jamon - just for us. I ate three big plates of it - and you don't really realise, but each different part of the leg has it's own particular flavour, quite amazing. And just when it couldn't get better (this happens frequently to us) it did - a whole case of Estrella Damm long necks - the beer created by the sommeliers from ElBulli.

Oh it was party time, my oath, my oath.

As we were leaving we each got a goody bag containing a nice embroidered apron, a sample box containing big packets of sliced chorizo & jamon, and some promo catalogues.

Honestly, i'm still waiting for the point where I can't eat anymore jamon, and I am really starting to think that it does not exist.

That, that, is what makes Jamon Iberico Belotta so good.

Hasta luego chicos!