In Spain, the Holy Grail of Ham

Western Andalusia has other unfamiliar trees. Cork trees are distinguished by their lack of bark, which has been cut off ultimately to stuff into wine bottles, thus leaving a black trunk. There are also holm oaks (encina), which produce the sweet acorns the black pigs eat. Under these trees, we were thrilled to spot some of the legendary black pigs rooting around for acorns.

We knew we were really off the American tourist track when we checked into the Hotel Galaroza Sierra and the desk clerk spoke no English. We took a two-bedroom apartment that faced the pool for $63 a night.

Our first stop was, no surprise, a ham store. Despite our deficient language skills, Señor Paco Jara of De Jabugo la Canada was adept at explaining why the Jabugo region produces the best ham. The hams are cured in salt one day per kilogram -- "No mas," he said. That means a 20-pound ham leg would be salted for fewer than 10 days, compared with, say, a Smithfield-type ham, which is in salt for more than a month.

Even in Jabugo, a 15-pound jamón ibérico de bellota costs $225. Señor Jara assured us that the packaged pieces of jamón were safe to bring into the United States. After all, he sells them to the European Union. So we spent about 60 bucks on a couple of gorgeous red-and-white chunks of jamón ibérico de bellota, packaged in plastic.

We wanted to see how the hams are cured, and I'd written out a request in my best David Sedaris-style "Me Talk Pretty One Day" Spanish. Sylvester Macias, at the Juan Macias plant, clearly thought we were nuts, but he agreed to show us around his facility, which contains 200,000 jamónes.

In the salt room, 4,000 jamónes were stacked on pallets. After salting, the hams are washed in what appears to be a car wash for hams and refrigerated for 40 to 50 days. Then they're hung to naturally air-cure for two years in rooms with slatted windows that can be opened or closed.

Seeing all these jamónes made us hungry for, well, jamón. We cruised to nearby Aracena (population: about 7,000), the capital of the region, and stopped in at the Bar Tapas Sirlache for our first jamón of the day with a side of ensaladilla, potato salad with peas and bits of tomato. We also tried Licor de Bellota, a liqueur made from the encina acorns. We'd been warned that we wouldn't like it, but we found its vanilla-y flavor yummy, and our first order of business after lunch was to buy a bottle to take home.

We headed for another meat-processing facility, this time with a translator, Felix, who teaches middle school English. The specialty of the Conservas Jabugo is embutidos -- sausages. The company makes basic Spanish sausages -- chorizo, salchichón, morcón and morcilla -- as well as the cured tenderloin lomo and a few jamónes.

Everyone we met around town expounded on why Jabugo hams are the best. Some credited the dry, mountainous micro-climate of Jabugo. "If you take the same pig to Seville 100 kilometers away," said Felix, "it would taste different."

Others cited the natural process and lack of preservatives other than pure sea salt. Before the days of refrigeration, hams were kept in cellars to cure, and even now, many locals hang hams in their cellars every fall. Said our Conservas Jabugo guide, Ignacio Contreras, of the elaborate computer-controlled refrigeration of his plant: "This imitates an ancient cellar. Nothing is new in the process."

We had time to visit one more jamón-curing facility. At Montesierra, director Manuel Martin showed us around his plant, which had 150,000 hams hanging in various stages of aging. Feeling one ham, he said, "This one needs more time. It's soft." Martin has some prize hams that have been aging for four years, and one of these babies costs $500.

On our last night in Jabugo, at Los Castanos bar, we asked Joseph, the amiable barkeep, who made the best ham in town. He did, he said -- he takes about five hams a year and cures them in his cellar for five years, the longest curing time we've heard yet. Steve was salivating to taste Joseph's jamón, and I'd never seen more shameless groveling for an invitation. Unfortunately, we were distracted by a couple of Brits who'd just driven in from Portugal, and the moment to cozy up to Joseph was lost.