EATING WELL

Cutting the ham

In town and country no bar, or supermarket will be without a festoon of jamons hanging from the ceiling. It seems an unnatural thing to do, hanging meat in a warm place with lots of people around and in some cases lots of tobacco smoke too. But it tastes good.

The English words ham and gammon and the Spanish words jamon york all mean much the same thing. The leg joint of the pig is processed containing water, salt and preservatives. Parma ham and the Spanish variety, jamon serrano are simply hung and cured on the bone for a long period of time in carefully controlled conditions of temperature and humidity.

Mountain ham from white pigs fed on acorns gives almost the best serrano, but the premier product is the pata negra from Huelva which is produced from brown pigs with black feet and cured for 12 to 18 months. How do you get the wafer thin slices of tender ham? The leg is clamped onto a wooden rack while a long sharp knife shaves the thin strips.

The bigger cities have places that specialise in offering ham for sale. Customers stand around bars eating plates of ham cut off the bone, Manchego cheese, crusty bread with loads of olives and drinking glasses of red wine. It is the food of the gods!

Slicing the sausage

Dry, long life, colourful sausages in different shapes and sizes hang in the supermarket next to hams. To understand sausages let us consider the raw and the smoked. Under raw we have the red, black and white. Under smoked we have black and white.

Chorizo is the most common cured, red sausage. The colouring is achieved by paprika, the ground powder of the dried sweet red capsicum. This along with salt, garlic and black pepper, is used to season a ground mixture of pork and pork fat. It is smoked or hung to dry like ham. It has a bright red colour, a chewy texture and a spicy taste.

Salchichon and longaniza are cured white sausages. They are similar to chorizo but made without paprika. Some variations are spiced with oregano or nutmeg. Others are more delicate. They are round and can be very long and thin.

Morcilla is a cooked Spanish black pudding. In the morcilla recipe is pork fat. salt, and spices, onion or chopped nuts. A very common addition is cooked rice. Some morcillas are made sweet. Its soft texture does not need chewing.

Lastly are the white cooked sausages called butifarras. Like morcillas they are made straight after slaughtering the pig, cooked with spices and other ingredients.

Food from the sea

The Spanish have always ventured seaward in search of food, adventure and trade. While each region has its traditional specialities there is hardly a fish you cannot find in any major city. Like the Italians, the Spanish will eat any creature that emerges from the depths. When it comes to fish their favourites are bonito (tuna), bacalao (cod), sardinas (sardines), anchoas (anchovies) and pulpo (octopus). Shellfish such as gambas (prawns) and mussels are eaten as part of normal life.

Lovers of fish will drool at the sight of masses of different fish species on offer in supermarkets, although some sizes are ridiculously small and should never have been caught. Some of the other typical fish from which delicious dishes are made include hake, red mullet, sole, swordfish. gray mullet, narrow-mouthed cat shark, cuttlefish, redfish, mackerel, blue-mouth rockfish. wreck-fish, and rays. Fantastic salmon is imported from Norway.

Wisdom is often to be found in simplicity. Fish and shellfish in Spain are usually prepared in uncomplicated yet mouth-watering ways; baked in the oven, hot from the grill, done over charcoal, lightly fried, or cooked in succulent yet simple stews.

Two delicacies from the sea must be mentioned here. The first is the anguila and the second the percebes; both almost unheard of outside Spain.

The life of anguilas (eels) is just as astonishing as the life of the salmon, but in reverse. The adult lives in the river then goes to the ocean to spawn and die. When spawning time arrives, they descend the northern Spanish rivers in great shoals heading out to the Atlantic Ocean and to the Sargasso Sea on the edge of the Bermudas.

They spawn and the females die leaving their fertilised eggs behind. When they hatch, the elvers are no bigger than a few inches. They begin the long journey home to the rivers of northern Spain. It is an arduous journey. Those that do survive and escape the fishermen’s nets will reach up to a metre in length. However, millions are scooped up into gossamer nets, parboiled, put into vacuum packed bags, frozen, or rushed off to Spanish restaurants where diners enjoy the catch.

It was the Spanish fish-addicted nation who first proposed eating percebes – a repulsive-looking crustacean known as a gooseneck barnacle. They can be seen displayed in the windows of up market seafood restaurants. Percebes are the most expensive protein source to be found in Iberia. Even those who routinely call for a lobster for lunch are inclined to think twice about ordering these delicacies.

Percebes should be boiled in a few cupfuls of Atlantic sea water for a couple of minutes. The initial incision is made in the tough neck, juice and sea water sucked out, then the soft stem devoured. Prise away a stone, the weather beaten skin and a sliver of flesh is left. The meat is chewy, a little like octopus in texture and flavour, albeit soaked in the fresh salt of the Atlantic. Skills verging on those of a micro-surgeon are required.

The jagged coastline of rocky inlets around Coruna to Finisterre is the most exposed stretch of the Spanish coastline. Percebes thrive there in conditions that make their harvesting particularly awkward. They prefer wild seas or at least strong tides, growing on the rocks at tide line where the mighty Atlantic breakers crash. Removing them from their rocks requires a fine sense of timing, as fisherman risk being swept off the polished rock faces by freak waves. Percebes must be harvested from land and not sea. Gathering involves one fisherman being lowered down a steep cliff-face on a rope to prise off a handful of percebes and being lifted above the highest waves.

Cheese

Spain’s geographic diversity and extensive herds of cows, sheep and goats, combined with traditions developed by generations of artisans in thousands of villages have resulted in an enormous variety of cheeses.

Several hundred types, varying in taste, size, shape, fat content. freshness, methods of maturing and texture, bear a Denominacion de Origen label and meet exacting quality standards and specification. Making fine cheeses is no longer simply a village industry. Continued improvements in technology and transportation and a much greater commercial awareness in both the public and the food industry, led to the introduction of the Denominacion de Origen. As with wine it identifies type and quality.

Just as wine is dependent on the type of grape, the quality and characteristic of cheese ultimately depends on the quality and nutritional value of the pasture consumed by cows, sheep and goats in their different habitats, which vary according to soil type, climate, altitude and water. Cheeses also vary according to methods and maturing time.

More than half the cheeses produced in Spain are mixtures that combine three animal types. In such mixtures, the cow gives acidity, the sheep high fat content and goats the white colour. The mixtures are classified into three groups called Queso Hispanico. Iberico and Mesta.

Although the range of Spanish cheeses is impressive, they cannot compare with the variety available in either France or the UK. A good hard Manchego cheese made under government regulation will give a consistent and reliable product. Hard sheep’s milk cheeses from the heart of Spain’s La Mancha are delightful when well matured. Cabrales, a sheep’s cheese rather like blue Roquefort from Asturias is also worth trying.

Fruit and vegetables

Spain is the market garden of Europe. It produces and exports more fruit and vegetables than most other nations of the EU and has almost every climate and microclimate. The range of fruit and vegetables available to a Spanish cook is enviable.

Strangely, Spanish fresh fruit and vegetables have to be purchased with care. Locally grown produce in season is cheap and available all year long, but of course, like all European countries, Spain exports most of its Class I produce. Quality produce is better purchased from the fruteria at the mercado central than from the supermarket.