Thin translucent slices of jamón ibérico fanned on a wooden board beside chorizo ibérico, lomo and salchichón, a piece of pan con tomate and a small glass of sherry

Jamón Ibérico: How to Read the Label and Serve It

Published 9 Sep 20265 min read

Filed under Cured Meats Mercado Famous Spain

The fat is the giveaway. Look closely at a slice of jamón ibérico de bellota and the white fat running through it is soft and oily. The pig spent its last months eating acorns, and pigs fattened this way carry fat high in oleic acid, largely because acorns are high in it.

Jamón ibérico has its own Spanish quality standard, Real Decreto 4/2014, and the label it requires tells you the breed and the diet.

The pig and the dehesa

The cerdo ibérico is a breed of Spain and Portugal, and in its traditional system it is raised free-range on grass and acorns. Its meat carries fat within the muscle as well as around it. That intramuscular fat is what marbles the ham.

The dehesa is cleared Mediterranean oak forest, managed as open pasture. Every autumn the oaks drop their acorns, the bellotas, and the pigs are turned out to eat them. This season, the montanera, runs from roughly October to March, and the pigs roam and fatten on acorns, grass and the other natural resources of the dehesa. A 2013 study of Iberian loin and shoulder found a higher share of intramuscular fat in pigs finished in the montanera than in pigs raised on feed. Every black-label ham comes from a purebred Iberian pig finished this way.

The four label colors

Since 2014 Spanish law has required every ibérico ham and shoulder to wear a colored tag that encodes two things: how pure the pig's Iberian breeding is, and what it ate.

Black: 100% ibérico de bellota. Both parents purebred Iberian; finished on acorns and pasture in the dehesa. It is the only category legally allowed to be called pata negra.
Red: ibérico de bellota. Acorn-finished in the dehesa, but the pig is 75 or 50 percent Iberian, crossed with Duroc. The label must state the percentage.
Green: ibérico de cebo de campo. Fed mainly on grain and legumes in outdoor or semi-outdoor systems, where the pigs may also graze, without the acorn season.
White: ibérico de cebo. Iberian-breed pigs fed on grain and legumes in intensive farm systems.

The percentage refers to breed, not to acorns. A "50% ibérico" ham with a red label ate acorns; a "100% ibérico" ham with a white label did not. Read both halves of the tag.

Time in the cellar

After slaughter the legs are salted, left to rest while the salt spreads through the meat, and then dried and matured before a final aging period. Spanish law requires an ibérico ham to cure for at least 600 days, or 730 days for a leg of seven kilos or more. Dry-cured hams lose a third or more of their weight during curing. The small white crystals that sometimes speckle a cut surface are tyrosine, an amino acid, and how often they appear depends on drying temperature and how much weight the ham loses.

Serrano and the Mercado Famous hams

Jamón serrano is cured for a shorter time than ibérico: at least 210 days, about seven months, under the Serrano TSG standard. It is a different product, with its own texture and flavor.

Jamón Serranía (shop Jamón Serranía) is a Spanish ham from Spanish-breed, grain-fed pigs, cured for 17 months in the Salamanca countryside. Jamón 50% Ibérico (shop Jamón 50% Ibérico) and Jamón 100% Ibérico (shop Jamón 100% Ibérico) are ibérico hams, with the percentage on each naming the share of Iberian breed in the pig. Mercado Famous makes its 50% from grain-fed pigs and its 100% from acorn-fed Ibérico, so the two also differ in diet.

Lomo, chorizo and salchichón

Lomo is the cured pork loin. Mercado Famous seasons its Lomo 50% Ibérico (shop Lomo 50% Ibérico) with pimentón and garlic and describes it as rich and marbled.

Chorizo is the sausage seasoned with pimentón, Spanish paprika. The ibérico version comes sliced (shop sliced Chorizo Ibérico) or whole (shop whole Chorizo Ibérico), and the whole one is cured with natural spices for 40 days in La Alberca. The serrano chorizo (shop whole Chorizo Serrano) is the classic style, also cured with natural spices.

Salchichón ibérico (shop Salchichón Ibérico) skips the paprika for nutmeg and black and white pepper.

How to serve it

Temperature comes first. The fat in ibérico is firm and opaque straight from the refrigerator. Open the pack, lay the slices out on a plate in a single layer, and leave them at room temperature until the fat turns glossy and translucent. Then eat them with your fingers.

Ibérico is sliced paper thin, in pieces about the length of a finger. Do not stack the slices or roll them; drape them so air and warmth reach the fat.

Bread should be plain and good. The Spanish habit of rubbing it with tomato and dripping olive oil over it, pan con tomate, is the classic partner for a slice of ham (the olive oil buying guide covers choosing the oil). Around the plate go Marcona almonds, green olives (the olives guide), a hard sheep's cheese, and a glass of fino or manzanilla sherry, or a sparkling tea for anyone not drinking (the non-alcoholic drinks guide).

Serve ibérico ham as it is, uncooked. Chorizo goes happily into eggs, beans and stews.

Storage

Keep unopened vacuum packs in the refrigerator and follow the date and storage instructions on the pack. Once a pack is open, press the remaining slices flat in their pack or in parchment so the surface does not dry out.

Where to start

For an education: one pack each of the Serranía, the 50% ibérico and the 100% ibérico, opened side by side, left on a plate until the fat turns glossy, eaten in that order. The flight moves across breed and diet. For a board: the salchichón, the lomo and a pack of ham. For cooking: the chorizo.

Products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com, and the shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Ambrosia was said to confer immortality; jamón de bellota only confers thirty seconds of silence at the table, which is close enough.