Jamón Jamón

Spanish ham has been celebrated in literature, music and on celluloid. Serrano ham is unique and that is why so many authors have sought to write about it. Musicians craft songs around it. Flim directors make movies in which Jamón plays a supporting or starring role. And even poets have honoured one of the favourite foods of Spain.

It is said that poet Lope de Vega could not work without first consuming some ham or bacon.
Or as he put it:-

Therefore all writing is a sham
Where there is wanting Spanish ham.

Traveller and writer Richard Ford was a huge fan of Spain. In that sense he was before his time. Were he writing about Spanish food today, rather than in the 19th century, he would be on every Spanish television programme discussing the food of the country.

When it came to Jamón he was convinced that he knew which areas of Spain offered the tastiest ham.

He said: "Those (the hams) of Galicia and Catalonia are also celebrated but are not to be compared for a moment with those of Montanche (in Extremedura), which are fit to set before an emperor. Their only rivals are the sweet hams of the Alpujarras, which are made at Trevélez, a pig hamlet situated under the snowy mountains on the opposite side of Granada, to which also we have made a pilgrimage.

"They are called dulces or sweets, because scarcely any salt is used in the curing; the ham is placed in a weak pickle for eight days, and is then hung up in the snow. It can only be done at this place, where the exact temperature necessary is certain."

The province of Teruel also produces jamón serrano. The city of Teruel is the smallest provincial capital in Spain.
Like Trevélez, this is a place that experiences very cold weather in the winter and that is ideal for the maturing of the haunches of jamón. As in La Alpujarra, the fresh cold air is crucial to producing tasty ham.

Through the centuries, and long before food was talked about in a cultural sense, writers have penned their tributes to Spanish food.

The great Laurie Lee journeyed from north to south in Spain in the 1930's and only left the country when Civil War was about to break out. He writes of how well he ate across the country, including in Madrid.

In the book 'As I walked out one midsummer morning' he spoke about being served sumptuous food in Spanish taverns.
He writes: "...piled around the counters - succulently arranged in dishes or enthroned on great blocks of ice - lay banquets of seafood: craggy oysters, crabs, calamares heaped in golden rings, fresh lobsters twitching on beds of palm leaves, bowls of mussels and feathery shrimps. Also on offer would be the little sizzling saucers of kidney or roasted sparrow, snails, fried squid, hot prawns in garlic, stewed pork or belly of lamb."

Laurie Lee sums up his experience of dining in Madrid thus.
"Nobody drank without eating - it would have been thought uncivilized... that's how i remember it."

Some tastes may have changed over the years but that observation of Lee's remains as true today as it was in those years before war changed Spain forever.