Savour International

Magnificent castles – and food to match! Spain’s best ham comes from the Extremadura region, whose ham route in the south-western part of the country offers magnificent castles, superb churches, whitewashed villages, deserted oak forests – and hams by the thousands.

 

Alejo Pérez Carasco is proud of his hometown, Jerez de los Caballeros. He looks out over the hilly landscape of Extremadura with something approaching wistfulness, as if this panorama weren’t there for him to contemplate every day. A sea of mountains and cork tree forests stretch to the horizon, and amidst them is Carasco’s hometown, Jerez de los Caballeros – a veritable jewel.

 

A number of magnificent 16th century churches rise from a maze of white houses and narrow streets. The exquisitely decorated tower of San Bartolomé church is visible from afar. No less impressive is the town’s 13th century knight’s castle. History that you can also get a good look at.

Jerez de los Caballeros was once home to a number of Spanish conquistadors. Hernán de Soto, who conquered Panama and Nicaragua and discovered Florida and the Mississippi, hailed from here, as did Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.

 

But the real treasure of Jerez de los Caballeros is be found in Carasco’s drying room: Jamón Ibérico de Bellota ham. The entire region at the tip of south-western Spain near the border with Portugal is renowned for its ham. Zafra, Fuente de Cantos, Cabeza la Vaca, Segura de León, Higuera la Real and Oliva de la Frontera are all names well known to many a gourmet. But Jerez de los Caballeros counts as the cradle of Spanish ham.

For a number of years now these villages have constituted the “ham route” of Spain: “I even receive orders from Germany,” says Mr. Carasco, whose family has been earning a livelihood from pig breeding and ham production since 1887 and whose Jierrito Alejo ham is renowned throughout Spain.

 

The hams are cured for two to three years in a drying chamber

But what makes the hams from this region so exceptional? Carasco is just about to tell me, but a hot, dry wind sweeps through the window into the drying room. The 67 year old Carasco lifts his index finger. It’s because of the pig farming, he explains, and the microclimate at 700 meters above sea level with hot summers and cold, dry winters; and the curing process in natural drying huts. Carasco enjoys showing visitors how the hams are cured.

 

Hundreds of the hams hang from the ceiling of Carasco’s drying room, where the wind blows over them. The odour in the room is a mixture of grass, ham, mould, fat, and herbs. During the curing process, the fat sweats out of the hams (this fat mainly stems from the acorns that the pigs are fed) and as a result each ham loses nearly one third of its original weight and mould begins growing on it – a process that also contributes to the incomparable flavour of the ham.

But the reason why the hams from this region are a gourmet product on a par with caviar and foie gras is to be found outside the drying room. “Take a gander out the window,” Mr. Carasco says. “My pigs live out there in the oak groves and move around all day long.”

These long-legged, pointy-snouted, dark-haired pigs are allowed to roam free in the region’s extensive rocky cork oak forests practically year round. Extremadura boasts a million hectares of this ecosystem. When you walk the few hiking paths that traverse these forests, you often come upon goats, Merino sheep, cows, and small herds of dark-skinned pigs, who are among the last species of pasture pigs in Europe.

 

Each pig eats up to ten kilos of acorns a day

After being weaned, the pigs are mainly given grain to eat and in the pastures graze on roots, bulbs, grass and herbs. From November through January, during what is known as the Montanera phase, the pigs mainly eat fallen acorns. “Each of them eats up to ten kilos of acorns a day,” notes pig farmer José Antonio Macías Sánchez.

Mr. Sánchez has around 25 pigs on his 100 hectare farm near Cabeza la Vaca. He spends almost the whole day with the animals so that he can strike the trees to get the acorns to fall out of them. But his pigs are fussy eaters. Mr. Sánchez always has to knock acorns out of the holm oaks, since those are the only kind the pigs will eat. These acorns, Mr. Sánchez explains, are simply sweeter and tastier than any other kind. Each pig gains up to one kilogram a day on this gourmet diet.