Country ham is rarely flavored with anything besides salt, sugar, and black pepper, and is typically sold whole, with the bone still inside. Read the latest reviews on our favorite products. We also need an in-between period in the spring, when the ham adapts to the heat of summer.". Watching these pigs forage is a fascinating experience. It differs from country ham in that it’s wet-cured, which usually means that it’s injected with a brine to accelerate the curing process over the dry-cure of a country ham. Later in the season they will return to the rejects and scarf them up. Twenty years ago I sampled the prized pork when we were working on developing a hotel in Barcelona, called Hotel Arts, that was meant to open in time for the Olympics in 1992.

I can't attest to that, but he did serve me one from 1999. Mustard would be a sacrilege. Instead, they root through the underbrush with their pointed snouts and inhale the holm acorns, crunching down on them and letting the shells fall to the ground. "Thirty years ago this was a poor people's product," Ullibarri observes.
Thin indeed, and one of the many sublime qualities that define their uniqueness. "Normally the Americans and the French don't like it, and the Italians cut away the fat.

After all, this is "5J 100% Pure Breed Ibérico de Bellota" ham from Spain. At 25 Ave. de Montaigne; 33-1/5367-6500; www.alain-ducasse.com. The landscape is so picturesque that it might be mistaken for a gigantic park. The salt is then washed off, though some has already entered the meat, and for the next three months it migrates inward to the bone.

Ideally it is placed on a special stand and the carver uses a long, sharp knife to cut paper-thin slices. Conran gained international attention with the launch of Habitat, but the designer and restaurate.
Jota. MUGARITZ, ERRENTERIA The countryside redoubt of Andoni Luis Aduriz, the most gifted young chef in Spain.

York ham is dry-cured with little more than salt and nitrates. And if you’re a little wary of carving your own meat, opt for the semi-boneless, which gives you the best of both worlds. First, place your nose up close to assess the complexity of the aroma.

At 6 Sant Joan; 34-938/672-851; www.canfabes.com. But don't expect fancy preparations: The best (many say only) way to present the ham is unadorned. Virginia ham, or Smithfield ham, is a country ham from Virginia, and the name is unrelated to the Smithfield Foods company. City hams can contain the bone or be boneless, and are often packaged with water added, which, says Serious Eats’s Kenji Lopez-Alt, is done to make the final product heavier and thus more expensive, since you’re paying per-pound. L'ATELIER DE JOEL ROBUCHON, PARIS The great French chef has reinvented himself with tapas-style food served at a big, curving rosewood counter much like a sushi bar. Jamón ibérico de bellota, though, must be produced entirely in Spain: The ibérico pig and the dehesa's acorns are essential to its unique flavor. Prague ham: A singularly unusual ham from the Czech Republic, Prague ham is wet-cured in a brine solution, sometimes with spices, then smoked over beechwood. Both Adrià and Robuchon serve Joselito ham in their restaurants. Meredith Corporation Travel & Leisure Group is not I was in Barcelona, sitting with my husband and business partner, at a dank wine bar, slipping short, translucent, wafers of cured pork into our mouths and letting them gently rest upon our tongues until they melted away -- not unlike the experience of transcendental sashimi. It’s then usually smoked at a low temperature for flavor. The current issue of DEPARTURES is available exclusively to American Express Platinum Card® Members. Ibérico ham is best eaten unembellished. The World's Best Ham: It May Be $150/lb But It May Be Worth It. These pigs remain slender and strong, and their ankles look a lot like my mother's, who wore a quad-A shoe with a quintuple heel. It's the pigs' diet that sets apart jamón ibérico from other hams; in fact, the breed is important primarily because—athletic, drought-tolerant, long-legged—it is accustomed to eating very little during the dry summer and devouring as much as 20 pounds of acorns daily in winter. But before we get started: what exactly is a ham? France