A clear case of hamicide

 

If I ever answer no to a certain list of questions, it would probably be worth checking whether the real Simon has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a robot. “Would you like a ham?” is one of those questions.

It was put to me at work last week, by a colleague, and prompted a spitting out of coffee mid-sip. What, like a whole jamón?

“Yeah we’ve been given one and don’t really like it.”

Don’t really like jamón?!

There is a fair argument that any guiri who has been living in Spain for more than a year should be automatically deported for letting that phrase pass their lips. Indeed, all vegetarians should abandon hope when they set foot in Barajas airport, as telling a waiter that you don’t eat meat will usually result in lashings of ibérico still turning up on your plate. (“Pero es jamón, no es carne” is the usual response to any complaints.)

Ever since I’ve been cohabitating with a gen-yoo-wine Madrileña, we tend to have a jamón in the cupboard, tucked up underneath its cloth blanket, its exposed flesh tenderly laden with moist fat.

I don’t claim to be any kind of expert, but for an Essex boy I feel that I am learning to wield a razor sharp, 15-inch ham knife rather well, and am getting a feel for just how the wafer-thin meat should be shaved off the joint.

Imagine, then, my joy to be presented with the unwanted ham from my colleague – and then imagine my shock at seeing what his American flat mates had done to it.

 

THE VICTIM

First up, rather than being delivered in the usual woven sack, which normally comes imprinted with the name of the fábrica and doubles up as a blanket for when the ham is sleeping, it was wrapped in a manky old pillowcase, complete with mystery stains. And then there was the handiwork. As Colonel Kurtz would say, the horror. It was as if the only thing they had lying around in the kitchen was a hammer and chisel, along with a little bit of sandpaper to give it that “just-scraped” look. We immediately sprang into action in the kitchen, donning aprons and sharpening implements after pinning the patient into place for some emergency surgery.

After prepping was complete, the first incision was made, a wedge-shaped cut toward the top of the bone as a prelude to the search for healthy, moist jamón, rather than the sad, dried out scar-tissue the sides of the beast boasted.

After 15 minutes of precision scalpel work, it looked as if the prognosis was good: we would be eating (albeit rather dry) jamón tonight – and despite the damage inflicted, the patient was going to last for at least a month (two weeks should my in-laws be round for dinner).

 

POST-OP

The moral of the story? Hams given as gifts should be carefully supervised – if they fall in to the wrong hands, tragedies such as the near-miss described here can occur.

I have hefted two hams to the UK in the last year, as gifts for my folks and for my aunt and uncle, and I’m pleased to report that not only did they survive the journey, thanks to some vacuum packing, but they lived a reasonably long life in that green unpleasant land, their bones being even boiled for stock once they had been stripped bare. 

To coin a phrase, a ham is for life, not just for Christmas.

But as a final word I shall step down from my ham high horse for just one second. In 2002, when I had only been in Spain for a couple of years, I was given a ham as a Christmas gift from the company I was working at. I confess, I did not have proper supervision, nor the tools necessary for the job (a saw, ham stand and very sharp knife, for the uninitiated). I did my best to hack off some meat from the leg, before wrapping it back up in its grease-soaked paper, and hanging it off a hook in our cramped kitchen, still in the bag. A few days later it had grown a bit of mold. Still being more guiri than Spanish at that time (after 11 years in Madrid I feel justified in proclaiming myself at least part Madrileño), I decided that a little bit of mold must be bad. And… it pains me to say it… I threw the whole bally thing away.

I still wake up sweating some nights at the thought of having metido la pata… in the trash.

So the floor is open: apart from desecrating a jamón, what’s the worst faux pas that a guiri living in Spain can commit?

Oh, and any ham-cutting tips are most welcome too...

 

Comments

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[Publicado por: Comment]

Boyero is not reading and don´t have any idea so he can not give a fuck about this Cary Grant´s film i´m talking about. Uh?. Ha!.
Pity!.

I´m the braggart rite now!
HE!

[Publicado por: Comment]

good stuff!
Bacon in Spain is shit -not THE shit- as well as those baked beans I must buy via tin (HEINZtm are oka) and I miss. Anyway, Things around jamón are funny but stunning. 'God, let them play and most important; let them try'.

Portugal has - as well as Spain- porridge and I used to think about them once a musician, an artist come tome my mind.

Hamicide is a great headline, though..
"If it ain't WHAM, it ain't ham"

[Publicado por: Bea]

Hmmm... JAMÓN. I miss you so much, you dirty, raw leg of a pig.

I believe that cutting jamón well is a genetic trait passed down by wild pig hunter ancestors. Not everybody had a pig hunter ancestor. For instance, I am pretty sure that my ancestors were mighty cocoa-bean gatherers.

Very nice article!

[Publicado por: Chez]

It's not easy to cut iberic ham, it has its own technique. A few people (talking about spaniards) know haw to do it. But most of the spaniards knows when the ham is not well cut ... psm.

I know how to cut ham after a few years trying, and when I see somebody "killing" a ham (spaniards or strangers), something whithin explode!

[Publicado por: Elendili]

@rob train: because we call bacon "panceta", probably. Anyway, if you want bacon, just skip the supermarkets and go into any butcher shop. They should have it (we eat it, I can assure you... or haven´t you heard the Spanish saying that goes "Del cerdo, hasta los andares" ("from the pig, you can eat even the way it walks")?;).

Amazing article... I really enjoyed it!
I´ve tried to introduce jamón to Czechs, French and Brits, and I´ve witnessed with horror how they ate it with butter (the first two) or any kind of sauce (the later). After that, I decided not to waste more of that precious material into trying to teach foreigners about our national delicatessen.
I´m just glad to see that, after your first sacrilegy (I wouldn´t be able to sleep, if I would have thrown away a whole jamón...), you´re getting to appreciate our food, and even mastering the cutting technique (as someone said, something that we, Spanish, usually don´t know how to do, turning poor jamones into carved witnesses of our yo-de-esto-sé way of life). Congratulations! ;)

And about guiris´ faux pas... I once saw someone in Galicia pouring ketchup on a fresh oyster. Not nice. But I guess the most usual one is going around turistic areas (Plaza Mayor in Madrid, for instance) and trying to eat typical dishes there.

[Publicado por: rob train]

Savages, these Americans. But it does raise an interesting question about Spain's love affair with the pig: why the hell can't you get a decent rasher of bacon in this country? anyone?

[Publicado por: Ignatius]

Good one. You sound like someone who knows what the important things in life are, jamon being one of them of course.

I did not understand this colleague offering you a full jamon and then giving you a mostly eaten, dried piece. Oh well.

And yes, unfortunately you don't have to be a guiri to destroy a jamon while trying to cut it. My brother is living proof.

The worst I've seen a guiri do is also jamon-related. This American woman, presented with a dish of perfectly cut jabugo jamon at a restaurant ($$$), started to take all the fat out of each slice, before eating them. And she even got offended when I told her that the pig had been fed only acorns for months so that the meat would be veined with luscious fat.

A good (obvious) tip when you open a jamon is to keep that first big chunk of skin and fat and use it as a cover to keep the open side moist. You can also rub some of its own fat over the opening, so that it doesn't dry.

Talking about guiris and Spanish food made me remember this ad. "Mucho bueno, caracolos". A classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwxP8ZZxDOo

[Publicado por: David B]

Jamon Serrano is one of the finests in-between meals you can taste, and I am pleased to read your article, a guiri which appreceates how good it is, as some do ...

As a Spanish person that has lived in the UK for years I have many times given some to try to brits, some appreceate something different undoubtly of good quality, but theres always those so closed into "only those things they know" that will even say its nasty- then go back to their fishnchips, burnt thick sausages which ooze fat when you fork them, jacket potato and other cholesterol bombs.

England has some good things, but I assure you their food ain't one of them!

We Spanish are carnivores, true, but its all good :)

[Publicado por: Rosario]

To continue a bit more with the ham issue: I once saw somebody ask for ketchup, so he could put some in his "bocata de jamón". That was quite terrible to bear.

[Publicado por: maria zou]

Loved the article, reminds me of my first years in Madrid. "Clapping"

[Publicado por: psm]

LOL, I really enjoyed your article, and if you ask me not too many things can be worst than spoling a good jamon iberico.
Sadly not all Spaniards know how to cut Iberian ham and it is always a recurrent subject of the national passtime: to discuss... everyone knows better when you are cutting a ham, but when you ask that person to show his skills he excuses himself saying that he doesnt want to dirt his hands...

[Publicado por: Jaume]

I love the word "albeit"

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