From Little Acorns

In the oak-filled pastures of western Spain, home to the black Iberian pig, a distinct combination of terrain and tradition helps to produce one of the most dazzling mouthfuls of meat anyone could hope to enjoy

- Neil Davey

The first thing you notice is the colour — a rich shade that, depending on the light, is somewhere between raspberry and the ruby shimmer of port. Then there’s that pearlescent ribbon of fat — and, oh, what fat it is, already melting to the touch as you pick it up and, in passing, admire the delicate slicing involved. And then it hits the tongue, and that’s when the fireworks start, from that umami fizz across the palate to the sweet nuttiness that fills the mouth.

Many foods are synonymous with a location. I can’t think of Singapore without yearning for chilli crab, Mumbai without wanting to stain my shirt with enthusiastic mouthfuls of keema pao, or California without hankering for an In-N-Out Burger.

No food, however, speaks as strongly of its origins as jamón ibérico de bellota. And no food makes me — and countless others, too — wax quite so lyrical about its appearance and flavour.

Jamón ibérico is inexorably tied to the land that produces it. This is partly because its Denominación de Origen status (Spain’s version of the EU’s protected designation of origin) is so fiercely guarded. It refers specifically to ham produced from pigs reared in the dehesa (an oak-filled pasture). But its connection to the land goes far deeper than mere legalities; deeper even than the acorn (bellota) that gives the ham its name, and its fat a creamy, nutty flavour.

“It’s almost anthropological,” says Monika Linton, founder of Brindisa, the UK-based Spanish food wholesaler that was largely responsible for introducing jamón ibérico to a mainstream audience in the UK, back in the 1990s. “You can see how everything is so interdependent — the weather, the farmers, the trees, the feed,” she adds.