Jamon Iberico de Bellota (100th Post!)

This marks my 100th post!
Thank you for your readership.
I hope it’s been as entertaining for you as it’s been fun for me.

To properly celebrate this milestone, let’s salivate over the world’s best ham:
Jamón Ibérico de Bellota.

There once was a black-hoofed pig in Spain,
Whose long legs sports an extraordinary fat layer and incredible marbling,
Spoiled on a diet of acorns in the Dehesa forest,
Cured in fresh mountain air for over 2 years,
Yielded the most naturally complex yet exquisite morsels known to man,
Jamon, Iberico de Bellota.

€14.01 /100 g

We would not have been allowed to leave Spain without tasting this national treasure.
And a treasure it is worth.
At €14.01 per 100 grams, it amounts to $420.3 per pound (today’s exchange rate at 1 EURO = 1.36 USD).
We experienced it at the minimum allowable purchase weight — 50 grams.

Carefully mounted on a specially designed carving rack, each leg is trimmed off of the outer dried material & fat layer, then thinly shaved into individual slices by hand.

our order

A beautiful plate of meat petals, so frailly thin yet so maddeningly addictive.

It was just the slightest tug in the mouth before the slice dissolves on the tongue.
There is an unequivocal umami of meaty, nutty, fatty and a surprising honey-like sweetness.
Everything was perfectly balanced; no one note outshines another.
All layers sang at once, in total harmony.

Paired with a glass of quietly complex tempranillo and time ceased to exist.
It was perhaps an act of serendipity that the following photo came out blurry.
The hazy capture serves as a true representation of my vision at that moment — I think I cried a little eating this little slice of heaven.