Jamón ibérico: Find Me Some

My latest discovery after a trip to Madrid has become jamón ibérico.    Here in Chicago I've enjoyed serrano ham but it's maybe on the General Motors scale of quality an Oldsmobile, whereas jamón ibérico and its various subsets are the Cadillacs of hams (and various types of this ham are in the Eldorado category).  Unlike pink prosciutto jamón ibérico is blood red, more chewy, and has a complex taste and texture.  Many of the tapas bars (which in Spain look nothing like Ba-Ba-Ree-Ba and instead are bars that serve a few basic snacks and sometimes meals) have a leg of ham hanging on a hook out in the open where someone can ask for a few slices. 

I ordered some jamón ibérico at a place called museo del jamon for 58 euros a kilogram (that's $35 a pound in real money).  It's not what you'd pay for your bog standard ham at the meat counter at Dominick's but then again it's a special cured ham from the black iberian pig fed a diet of acorns.   There are hams that are even more expensive, but my trip to Spain was mostly on business and I was quite happy with my purchase.

One of the owners of Pastoral, my favorite cheese and artisan food shop in the East Lakeview neighborhood (and dare I say "best"?), said they had some problems trying to get it in.  They sell some Spanish, Basque, and Catalonian  specialties such as Serrano ham, as well as a variety of cheeses such as Garrotxa, Idiazabal, Cabrales, and a fantastic Rosemary Manchengo.    They apparently tried, but I was told there were some USDA problems.   We can squash our livestock into cramped conditions, pump them full of hormones, feed them their own excrement, and send them through dangerous slaughterhouses, and that's perfectly legit.  But the U.S. government, for whatever reason, has issues with the importation of this sort of meat, which based on my understanding, does not come from factory farms.  According to a white paper performed by Iowa State, European Union regulations allow for "minimum light requirements", "permanent access to fresh water", and "access to materials for rooting and playing", not to mention that the EU bans the use of hormones.

For now hopefully some crafty souls will find a way to get jamón ibérico into Chicago.  I'm betting and hoping Pastoral (2945 N. Broadway) will be one of the first to sell it.

Comments

[Craig]

I long for the acron-fed piggy goodness as well. I half-jokingly asked some friends of mine that were going to Spain this summer to smuggle back some ham for me.

Supposedly, it should be available in the US market by 2008, though they won't be cheap. This site mentions $79/lb for bone-in hams.

http://www.tienda.com/reference/ibericoquest.html

[Brian]

Craig, thanks for the comment...hopefully your friends can get it past the USDA dogs...they were sniffing lots of suitcases when I went through customs.

[Yu]

The first food I ate in Spain when I did a short home-stay in Madrid was the jamón iberico. My host mother served a few slices of them on a toast, open-sandwich style. Like you said, jamón iberico is quite toothsome, but I didn't know that. I picked up the toast and bit in, only to find myself battling against the tough jamón that would rather slide off the bread than be cut by my feeble front teeth. It being my first meal with my host family, I tried very hard to hide my predicament--it certainly didn't feel great to be so clumsy with food.

Above the cumbersome jamón slices, I sneaked a few glimpses of my host family. And voila, they were all eating their open sandwich with a knife and a fork. (The Spanish have a habit of eating their sandwich with utensils, as I discovered later.) Did I feel like a barbarian, picking up the food with my bare hands, biting into it with my (not-so-)ferocious teeth, and being utterly defeated by the chewy jamón!

But the jamón was absolutely wonderful. As I chewed the blood-red meat, the flavor-packed fat melted in my mouth, coating every inch of it with the piggy goodness. (And my host family graciously laughed with me, not at me, when I explained my trouble with the unyielding jamón.) I had many, many jamón iberico dishes afterward, but none was as memorable as this first one.

Sorry for such a long comment, but your post brought back memories!

[Jose]

Hi,
In this shop they are trying to export to USA Jamon Iberico(Spanishtaste shop)and they think it will be available for this year.

[Jose]

Hi, in Spanishtaste shop Jamon iberico will be available in USA very soon. www.spanishtaste.es

[luis]

Iberian Ham is really wonderful. I know Jabugo (fantastic) ham, that i bought in www.manjaria.com tienda gourmet on-line based in Spain.They serve in the European Union.

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