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The best tasting cured ham that I have ever tasted comes from Spain. It is called Jamon Iberico de Belotta. It carries a very stiff price tag. The last time that I purchased any, nearly 12 years ago, it cost me over $120.00 per pound. I would purchase small amounts, 1-2 ounces, every couple of months, to be eaten with a good loaf of sourdough bread, some stinky cheese, and a good bottle of red wine.

I miss having the income to occasionally treat myself to the de Belotta grade of the Jamon Iberico ham.

This ham has a finer taste, to my palate, than does any Italian proscuitto ham that I have ever tasted, or any American country ham that I have had the opportunity to taste. It has to be experienced in order to understand why it commands such a premium price. Same thing for the 50 year old Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale de Modena DOP balsamic vinegar. Both are expensive commodities, well worth their premium prices, and have to be tasted before one can truly understand why people are willing to fork out big money for them.

The hogs that this ham is cured from are Black Iberian hogs, so called because their hooves are black in color. For a ham to be labeled Jamon Iberico de Belotta the hogs must have a 100% Black Iberian bloodline/DNA, and during the last portion of their life prior to slaughter, the hogs must be free-range fed on acorns in special dehesa forests near the Portugal/Spain border.

The forests, consisting primarily of several species of oak trees, to include cork oaks, are part of a agrosylvopastoral system called a dehesa. The trees are managed/pruned for acorn production, and a very long life (up to 250 years old).

If a cork oak, the cork is harvested only every 7-12 years. The trees are planted on a very wide grid system that allows a tree to grow to its full size. There is a gap of approximately 3 times the drip line diameter of a mature tree, between the rows of trees.

Pasture land managed for grazing grows between the oak trees. Multiple species of animals are grazed in the dehesa, to include Iberian fighting bulls, cattle for meat production, and sheep. Wild game is incouraged for hunting purposes. Goats are used to manage unwanted species of woody, herbaceous plants that would otherwise grow in the pasture areas of the dehesa. I also recall reading that chickens, ducks, and geese are rotated through the pasture areas after the cattle are grazed.

The acorns grown on these dehesas are said to be "sweet". Which means that they have a far lower tannic acid content than do other acorns. It is the acorns that the Black Iberian hogs are finished on that gives it its incomparable taste.

Back in Colonial days, hogs had their ears individually notched to identify who owned them, and they were allowed to free-range forage for food in the local forests. Every fall the teenaged boys were sent out in the forests to herd the community hogs to the stands of oak trees so that the pigs could fatten up on the masts. After the onset of cold weather, at slaughter time, the hogs were herded into the towns/villages for a community slaughtering process that took several days to complete.

The best tasting hogs were always those that had eaten the most acorns for the longest period of time, putting on the heaviest layer of fat. The hogs raised in Colonial times were of leaner breeds, than are most modern breeds of hogs.
 
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Our lease has a bumper crop of pecans and no acorns. Meat of hogs fattened on pecans is mighty tasty.
With pecans being much sweeter, less acidic, than acorns, I would think that any hog fattened on any of the sweeter nutmeats would be as tasty, if not tastier, than a hog fattened on acorns.
 

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