La Tienda in the Press

COPYRIGHT 2005 Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Amy Culbertson

The Spanish pantry is not necessarily an exotic one; some of its most essential ingredients _ such as garlic and onions _ are items American cooks are quite familiar with. Here are some other ingredients you need to know about if you want to explore Spanish cooking:

Anchovies: Spanish-cooking authority Penelope Casas prefers those bottled vertically in olive oil to those in tins. They're used whole in tapas and salads or pureed for spreads and sauces and to flavor cooked dishes. They're also eaten fresh and pickled, as boquerones.

Capers and caperberries: The flower buds of the Mediterranean caper bush are pickled as capers, whose tart flavor accents seafood dishes, vinaigrettes and sauces. The larger fruits are caperberries, which work as garnishes, snacks or tapas, served as olives would be.

Cheeses: Best-known are the sheep's-milk manchego and the rich cabrales, a blue cheese made from a mixture of sheep's, goat's and cow's milk, but there are many other Spanish cheeses. Most are eaten as tapas or as a separate course. Casas says cheese is not used much in cooked dishes in Spain.

Ham: Spain's cured jamon serrano, in the same league as Italy's prosciutto, is not only thinly sliced for tapas but used to flavor dishes from vegetables to bean stews, much as country ham is used in the American South. Casas hopes Spain's premier ham, Iberico, will soon be available in this country.

Marcona almonds: The aristocrats of almonds, rounded and rich.

Membrillo: A dense, solid preserve or paste made from quince fruit, membrillo is most typically eaten as a dessert with manchego cheese or as a child's snack with bread.

Olive oils: Casas considers Spanish olive oil the world's best. She uses the cheaper olive oils labeled "pure" for cooking, including deep-frying, and saves the extra-virgin for salads and marinades.

Peppers: Sweet red peppers are ubiquitous in Spanish cooking, whether dried, bottled or powdered as paprika (pimenton). Smoked paprika from Extremadura is the most prized in the latter category; wood-roasted piquillo peppers in jars or cans can be stuffed or cut into strips and dressed with olive oil and garlic. Both are available in gourmet markets in this country. Less available are the dried noras and romescos. Casas says mild New Mexico dried peppers can be substituted, but she strongly recommends ordering the real thing.

Saffron: A legacy from the Moorish occupation of Spain, the dried stigmas of the purple crocus are used to flavor and color stews, soups and rice dishes. Casas advises looking for strands that are uniformly deep red when buying this costly spice, of which a little goes a long way.

Sources: Casas likes these sources for authentic ingredients: La Tienda, www.tienda.com, (888) 472-1022,

SOURCE: La Cocina de Mama by Penelope Casas

Find the artisanal food of Spain at LaTienda.com
Florence Fabricant

Wholesale suppliers of high-end products like fine cheeses, game, imported condiments and fruit purées, meant mainly for chefs, have opened their warehouse doors to consumers who shop online. Dairyland, a Bronx-based company that is a major supplier to thousands of restaurants in New York and across the country, accepts individual orders at its Web site, www.chefswarehouse.com. There shoppers will find a fresh three-pound pheasant for $24, an eight-ounce package of sliced smoked salmon imported from Scotland for $12.50 and six liters of Badoit water from France for $21.

But if you want to buy the company's Grand Reserve 83 percent butterfat butter, the minimum order is 36 one-pound blocks, a bargain at $118. A comparable high-fat butter might run almost $6 to $8 a pound in a fancy food shop. Similarly, though some cheeses, like Spanish tetilla, and French goat pyramids come in small individual sizes, the minimum for imported Parmigiano-Reggiano is 20 pounds. But at $10.50 a pound the price beats Zabar's low of $12.98 online and $12.99 a pound at www.igourmet.com.

So, like co-op food buying in the 1960's, you have to find like-minded connoisseurs and cooks and share. And it is the Web site to use if you are giving a cocktail party.

"We are planning to break more products out so they are available individually," said Jane Walsh, a spokeswoman for the company. "We should begin to offer more cheeses for consumers in about a month."

Sales to consumers are a tiny part of Dairyland, which Chris Pappas started 20 years ago after taking over Veterans Butter and Egg, a wholesale distributor owned by his father and uncle until they retired. He expanded its list of cheeses and other dairy products. As requests by chefs increased, he added olive oils, vinegars and other condiments. The company has expanded into produce, fresh meat and some seafood. Its inventory lists more than 12,000 products, distributed nationally.

Mr. Pappas decided to sell Dairyland's products to consumers because, he said, he "got tired of saying no to my friends who were even willing to come to the warehouse." The Web site is called chefswarehouse.com because the company's original name no longer describes the range of products. "It turned out to be a poor choice, but it's tough to change it," Mr. Pappas said.

Other chefs' wholesalers selling retail online include www.chefshop.com and www.earthydelights.com, which is worth exploring for specialties like fresh fiddleheads and ramps in spring, fresh mushrooms, artisanal cheeses from producers like Cypress Grove in California and exotica like Shagbark hickory syrup.
The most complete Web site for baking ingredients, including unusual goods like organic oat flour, Swedish pearl sugar, dried buttermilk powder and toasted sesame seeds, is www.bakerscatalogue.com. Some items on this Web site are sold in professional-size quantities well below retail.

Online shoppers can also search for high-end foods and ingredients at Web sites dedicated to national cuisines, including www.tienda.com for Spanish, www.lepicerie.com and www.frenchfeast.com for French and www.gustiamo.com for Italian. A good Web site for Japanese ingredients and also for some from other Asian countries, including China, is www.pacificeastwest.com. Thai ingredients are available at www.importfood.com. And for foods from a dozen countries, with particular emphasis on Asia, there's www.ethnicgrocer.com.

Andrea Pyenson

Tapas ingredients are available locally at Formaggio Kitchen, 244 Huron Ave., Cambridge, 617-354-4750; South End Formaggio, 268 Shawmut Ave., Boston, 617-350-6996; at many Whole Foods Markets; or from www.tienda.com.

Sliced or cubed jamon serrano, a cured ham, one of the most popular tapas, is an ingredient in several other dishes. Italian prosciutto has a similar flavor if serrano is unavailable. Spain's favorite sausage is chorizo, which can be eaten like salami, or sauteed, baked, or cooked in sauce.

Sheep's milk manchego cheese can be semisoft when lightly cured or as hard as Parmesan (but not as strong tasting). It's the most popular cheese in Spain.

Firm fleshed and strong, bacalao, dried salt cod, must be soaked for 2 to 3 days before using. Look for pieces that are well dried and as white as possible.

Pimiento is Spanish for red pepper, though here the word refers to red peppers that have been cooked, peeled, and canned.

Triangular in shape, piquillo peppers, grown in northern Spain, have a uniquely curved point (piquillo). Thin-fleshed and mild, they are slow roasted at a low temperature, then peeled and packaged in their own juices.

Smoky pimenton, from the mountain valleys of western Spain, has a much deeper flavor than either Hungarian or American paprika. The slightly bittersweet taste is pungent without being spicy.

The most expensive spice in the world, golden saffron -- collected from the stigmas of crocuses -- gives food a distinctive color and flavor. Some of the best saffron comes from Spain and should be purchased in strands, rather than powder.

Contrary to popular belief, traditional Spanish paella does not mix meats and seafood. This paella depends on mussel meat for most of its flavor. The crust of rice on the bottom of the pan, called soccarat, is considered a delicacy in Spain. Even with the long list of ingredients, the dish is not difficult. Pimenton, Spanish smoked paprika, is available at specialty markets or from www.tienda.com. Serves 4.

2 pounds mussels, cleaned
½ cup dry white wine
2½ cups bottled clam juice
1/3 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads
2 eggs, hard-cooked and peeled
¼ cup olive oil
½ pound medium shrimp, peeled
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
½ teaspoon salt
1 tomato, finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
¼ teaspoon paprika (preferably pimenton)
1½ cups Spanish or Arborio short-grain rice
2 scallions, chopped
12 sugar snap peas, strings removed
1 canned pimiento, cut into strips

1. Set aside 16 of the mussels. Pour the wine into a large skillet, add the remaining mussels, cover, and cook over nigh heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until the mussels open.

2. Tip the cooking broth into a 4-cup measuring cup. Add enough clam juice to make 3 cups. Return the broth to the skillet. Add the saffron, and warm over low heat.

3. Remove the mussel meat from the open shells; chop it coarsely.

4. Set the oven at 400 degrees. Coarsely chop half of one egg; set aside. Slice the remaining 1½ eggs for garnish.

5. In a large paella pan or cast-iron skillet, heat the oil over high heat. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from the pan. Add the garlic, onion, green pepper, 1½ teaspoons of the rosemary, and salt. Lower the heat to medium and cook the mixture for 3 minutes. Add the tomato and parsley and cook 1 minute.

6. Stir in the paprika and rice until the grains are coated all over.

7. Pour in the hot broth, bring to a boil, and boil for about 2 minutes, stirring. Taste for salt and add the shrimp, chopped egg, and scallions. Continue to boil, stirring occasionally and rotating the pan if it is too big for one burner, for 3 minutes more or until the rice isn't soupy but sufficient liquid remains. Stir in the peas and set the pimiento and whole mussels on top.

8. Transfer the pan to the oven and cook for 10 to 12 minutes or until the rice is almost tender. Transfer to a warm spot, scatter with the sliced egg and the remaining rosemary, and let the paella sit for 5 to 10 minutes.

9. Return the pan to a burner and cook over high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, rotating the pan to evenly crisp the bottom of the rice.

Adapted from "Paella: Spectacular Rice Dishes From Spain"

© 2005 The New York Times Company

It's no secret that certain raw-milk cheeses and cured meats can't be imported into the United States. But what other delicacies are eluding us - and for how long?

Jamon Iberico

WHAT: The most delicious ham on earth. WHERE: Spain STATUS: Promising; once U.S.-approved processing facilities are completed, it may be available by 2006. The waiting list at tienda.com requires a deposit of $199.

Eggplant...peppers...anchovies...eels...

America's canned food isn't anything to brag about. But the Spanish have a genius for canning, as well as pickling and bottling. The products are uniformly top-quality, made with excellent ingredients that are minimally processed and that taste fabulous even served on their own. Some of Spain's best choices include bite-size, piquant pickled eggplant (berenjenas de Almagro); tender, gently brined Manzanilla olives; and wood-roasted piquillo peppers, notably Dantza's meaty pimientos. But the country's best canned food is undoubtedly its seafood: luscious fatty tuna from the Basque region; plump anchovies, especially the slightly sweet and salty Santiago Aldaz brand; and baby eels, or angulas, which are impossibly tiny (Cata Gourmet's are subtly briny and particularly good). Most of these products are available at specialty food stores and some supermarkets around the country, or at tienda.com.

*is not available in the U.S. Yet
Arthur Lubow

The oak-stippled hills of western Spain resemble the world's most scenic wine regions—Napa Valley, Chianti, Burgundy—with just one element missing: the vineyards. The landscape is so picturesque that it might be mistaken for a gigantic park. However, should you drive from Huelva in western Andalusia north to Salamanca in the late fall or winter, you would eventually spot the economic underpinning of these woodland pastures. That black, bristled, stocky animal snuffling through the undergrowth in a ceaseless, gluttonous quest for acorns is the ibérico pig, the scion of an ancient race that has survived unchanged for two millennia. Perfectly adapted to its climate and terrain, this pedigreed swine is the source of the finest ham in the world. 

Actually, the aficionados of jamón ibérico would rather you didn't think of their beloved ham as, well, as a ham. For instance, when I mentioned to Rafael Ansón, the president of the Spanish Society for Gastronomy, that the best jamón ibérico goes for upwards of $80 a pound in Madrid and that such a price may strike most Americans as being high for ham, he replied, "What is the cost of white truffles? A pound of beluga caviar? Ibérico ham is a bargain." I got a similar reaction when I asked Miguel Ullibarri, the manager of the ibérico ham producers' trade group, Real Ibérico, to explain what distinguishes jamón ibérico from Parma prosciutto or Spanish jamón serrano. "We never compare ibérico ham with other hams," he told me in a gently admonitory tone. "I love Parma ham and jamón serrano on some occasions, but they are not competitors of jamón ibérico." 

Still unobtainable in the United States, ibérico ham really deserves a category of its own. The delicacy's uniqueness was memorably revealed to me during a dinner at El Bulli, the temple of avant-garde cuisine on the Costa Brava, about an hour and a half's drive from Barcelona. We were served, as one of nearly 40 small courses, what appeared to be cherries covered in white chocolate. One bite revealed our error: These cherries had been dipped in the fat of ibérico ham. Delicious! The fat was earthy, nutty, and delicately perfumed. "I love a lot the complexity of the ham," the chef, Ferran Adrià, later explained. "Normally the Americans and the French don't like it, and the Italians cut away the fat. It's a cultural thing. It's very Spanish." 

That's true—but whatever the pork-loving advantages of growing up on the Iberian peninsula, sophisticated palates of any nationality recognize the ham's virtues. The illustrious, archetypally French chef Joël Robuchon informed me flatly in Paris, "The ham and pork of Spain are the best in the world." (We were speaking at the L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, his idiosyncratic—and mobbed—version of a sushi or tapas bar, where a plate of unadorned jamón ibérico is the most expensive dish on the menu.) In New York the telegenic Mario Batali recently opened Bar Jamón, which features Spanish tapas. Because of import restrictions, Bar Jamón can serve only jamón serrano, a cousin of jamón ibérico. Still, serrano is more than respectable. Chef Andy Nusser, who runs the kitchen at Bar Jamón, says that serrano ham is superior to prosciutto from Parma. However, he readily admits, "Once you taste ibérico, you can't compare it to anything else." 

A slice of the best jamón ibérico is dark pink or purple in color, suffused with veins of yellowish-white fat. At a tasting arranged for me in Madrid, at the fine traditional restaurant Príncipe de Viana, whole bone-in hams from five regions were lined up. Three came from the areas that, much in the way wines receive regional certification, have won Denominaciónes de Origen accreditation (Huelva, Guijuelo, and Dehasa de Extremadura), while two were from regions with applications pending for the D.O. (Sierra de Sevilla and Los Pedroches de Córdoba). Ansón, who had arranged the event, demonstrated the method for judging an ibérico ham. First, place your nose up close to assess the complexity of the aroma. Then rub your finger on the oleaginous exterior: The fat should be light, not thick and greasy. The visual examination, for depth of color and a glistening surface, is a third test. Finally, you get to taste. At room temperature (the way it should always be eaten) the fat melts in your mouth. The flavor? In a fine ibérico ham, it's as subtle and multileveled as a great wine. During the tasting that afternoon I preferred the offering from the Extremadura. However, what we were really determining wasn't superiority but subtle regional differences: For instance, the hams from Seville and Córdoba tasted brinier. 

By consensus, the best ham maker in Spain is Joselito, a company based at the northern, colder edge of the range, near Salamanca in Guijuelo. Both Adrià and Robuchon serve Joselito ham in their restaurants. So does Juan Mari Arzak, Spain's most venerated older chef, and Andoni Luis Aduriz, the most talented younger chef in the nation, at their establishments (Arzak and Mugaritz, respectively) in the Basque Country. "The quality is unbeatable," Arzak says. Rafael García Santos, the highly influential Spanish food critic, rates the Joselito Gran Reserva at 9.75 out of a possible 10—which in his view makes it the best food product of any kind in the country. 

Seeking insight into the mysteries of jamón ibérico, I enlisted the men who run Joselito, a fifth-generation family firm: José Gómez, the company CEO, who oversees the curing plant; his brother Juan Luis Gómez, who supervises the farms; and Germán Arroyo, the export manager. I started at the source, with the pigs, and I visited them during the montanera, the six-month period when they roam the woods, gorging on acorns. By the time they commence this final feast, the pigs are about two years old. At Joselito and the other best brands (notably, Sánchez Romero Carvajal of Jabugo), the breed of pig is pure ibérico; however, less-traditional companies have begun interbreeding the old race with modern varieties that fatten up faster and produce more piglets. Government regulations allow manufacturers to call any pig an ibérico if its parentage is at least three fourths from the ibérico breed. Although some types of pure ibérico pigs are red, golden, or spotted, most are black with black hoofs (which are included in the whole ham)—the reason that pata negra has become a synonym for ibérico. 

The montanera is the critical point in the process. It's the pigs' diet that sets apart jamón ibérico from other hams; in fact, the breed is important primarily because—athletic, drought-tolerant, long-legged—it is accustomed to eating very little during the dry summer and devouring as much as 20 pounds of acorns daily in winter. At the start of the montanera, the pigs are very hungry. "To fill the bottle, first it has to be empty," Juan Luis Gómez says. Watching these pigs forage is a fascinating experience. In the wooded pastureland, called the dehesa in Spanish, the two most common trees are the holm oak and the cork oak. The holm acorn is sweeter. In early winter the pigs disdain the acorns of the cork oak, leaving them to litter the forest floor. Instead, they root through the underbrush with their pointed snouts and inhale the holm acorns, crunching down on them and letting the shells fall to the ground. Later in the season they will return to the rejects and scarf them up. As a result of this gluttony, a pig can easily gain a pound and a half a day, until it finally tips the scales at 360 to 400 pounds. To ensure an adequate supply of acorns for such binges, each pig must have about four acres of the dehesa. This factor is what keeps the price of the best jamón ibérico so high and the production so low. 

There are indeed lesser forms of jamón ibérico, made from pigs that haven't consumed so many acorns. The highest category—jamón ibérico de bellota, "bellota" being Spanish for acorn—comes from animals that have put on at least one third of their weight by eating nothing but foraged acorns and grass (and the occasional snake) during the montanera. Ibérico pigs with a diet less heavy in acorns are classified as recebo; if they have eaten solely cereals, pienso. In an average year, there will be 4.5 million ibérico hams, but only one tenth of them are bellota. Even among the bellota hams, Joselito separates the largest and best shaped, distinguishing them as Reserva hams. Because the acorn crop varies each year depending on rainfall, ibérico ham is as vintage-dependent as wine. "The worst acorn crop of my life was in 2000," José Gómez says. "Forty percent of Joselito hams were put out under the second label, C. Jota." 

The acorn-rich diet transforms the fat of jamón ibérico de bellota. Studies from the University of Extremadura indicate that more than half the ham's fat content is monounsaturated (the type that is in olive oil) rather than the artery-clogging saturated kind usually found in animals. Significantly, at room temperature the ham's fat virtually melts, like a vegetable oil. "When the pig is slaughtered, an analysis of the fat is done," Real Ibérico's Ullibarri explains. "You can see the correlation between the amount of acorns eaten and the percentage of oleic acid—which melts at room temperature—in the fat of the animal." 

At Joselito, salting, curing, and aging are done as they have been for centuries. In the factory in Guijuelo, the only mechanical contraption is a button that opens or closes the windows in the drying rooms to regulate the temperature. In the winter, following the slaughter, the hams are piled up and kept in hills of sea salt for nine days. The smaller the ham and the colder the weather, the less salt is required. "We try to use the minimum amount of salt," José Gómez says. "Salt makes the curing process quick, but a ham with a lot of salt, if you keep it for a long time, becomes heavy like concrete." The salt is then washed off, though some has already entered the meat, and for the next three months it migrates inward to the bone. "We need a cold and dry period," Gómez says. "Then comes the curing, when the white fat turns to yellow, in summer. We also need an in-between period in the spring, when the ham adapts to the heat of summer." 

Curing takes nine months. After the first 30 days, the hams are covered with a blue-gray patina of mold. "A normal customer in the shop, if he saw the mold on the ham, he would throw it in the dustbin," Gómez says. "But this is what gives it an aroma." In the summer, as the hams sweat off the fat, the odor of the mold penetrates the meat. (From the time of slaughter to sale, the hams lose a third of their weight.) In modern facilities, like the Jabu plant that Joselito owns in Jabugo, technology has been harnessed to reproduce the temperature and humidity of the seasons. At the top-of-the-line plant in Guijuelo, however, nature is permitted to call the shots. Depending on their size (big hams are aged longer), the hams spend 18 to 20 months in the drying rooms. José Gómez says that a large Joselito ham can be kept for seven years. I can't attest to that, but he did serve me one from 1999. Deep purple with striations of yellow fat, it was redolent of the nutty flavor of acorns. Almost five years old, the ham was still in its prime. 

Because no Spanish slaughterhouses conform to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, jamón ibérico is unavailable in the States. (Outside Spain, the ham is for sale in many of Europe's best food shops; see "Where to Find It.") Jamón serrano can be imported and sold here if the pigs have been butchered in Holland or Denmark before the hams are cured in Spain. Jamón ibérico de bellota, though, must be produced entirely in Spain: The ibérico pig and the dehesa's acorns are essential to its unique flavor. 

The good news is that COVAP, a cooperative of 10,000 farmers in Córdoba, has built a new slaughterhouse in the town of Pozoblanco, designed to gain the USDA's approval. Donald B. Harris, the owner of the Virginia-based La Tienda import firm, has toured the plant and plans to bring COVAP's ibérico products into the United States. First will come the sausages (chorizo, salsichón, lomo) that are made from other parts of the pig and demand less time to cure—they may be obtainable by early 2006. Harris hopes the first ibérico hams will arrive in 2007. 

Ibérico ham is best eaten unembellished. Ideally it is placed on a special stand and the carver uses a long, sharp knife to cut paper-thin slices. "Anything you do with this product is going to make it worse," Ullibarri says. "For chefs, it's a bit of a problem." The best chefs have the self-confidence to present it naked. The only decision remaining, then, is what beverage to serve with the delicacy. To culminate our Madrid tasting of five hams, Rafael Ansón raided his capacious cellar and offered ten candidates. Among them were such rarities as a 200-year-old solera sherry and a 1982 Mouton Rothschild ("the best Mouton of the century," Ansón said proudly). The winners were far humbler. The dozen of us at the tasting judged a chilled fino sherry as the best, and a young red wine—what Spaniards call a tinto crianza—as the runner-up. Both wines were able to cut the unctuous richness of the ham. In a sense we had rediscovered the wheel, as these are the traditional accompaniments to jamón ibérico. That simple wines work best with ibérico ham comes as no surprise. "Thirty years ago this was a poor people's product," Ullibarri observes. "It's what was available in those areas. It's what people ate for energy." Like black truffles, which Provençal peasants once dug from the woods for free, what was yesterday beneath notice is today beyond praise.

 

Amy Culbertson

Fennel pollen. Micro-broccoli. Pine needles. Flavored foams. Trends flash through the rarefied atmosphere of the cutting-edge foodie's universe as swiftly as they do in the world of the dedicated fashionista.

Most food fads evolve from the global stage of high-profile restaurants, whether in Spain, London, New York or Tokyo. In this hyper-competitive arena, chefs are perennially seeking the next new special effect to jack up the wow factor for jaded jet-set diners.

Many of the resulting trends are reinventions of old ingredients or techniques; a few are genuine innovations. Many never make it to the kitchens or dining rooms of ordinary cooks, but some change our cooking and our pantries forever.

Here is a look at four ingredients that we think deserve a permanent place in your own pantry this year:

Smoked paprika
This is everybody's pick for the hot ingredient of the year, and with good reason.

First, it's from Spain, which continues to be the country of the moment when it comes to food and wine trends. Second, this stuff is incredibly tasty, not to mention incredibly versatile.

Lovers of Texas barbecue will understand why smoked paprika adds an earthy depth of flavor to food: The secret is the time the Spanish red peppers spend slow-smoking over smoldering oak before being ground into a fragrant, velvety burnt-red powder.

"The flavor and aroma are deep, intense, sweet, spicy and smoky," rhapsodizes the Web catalog of Zingerman's, the respected gourmet food purveyor in Ann Arbor.

Smoked paprika comes in three heat levels: dulce (sweet), agridulce (medium) and picante (hot). The top-shelf stuff is labeled "pimenton de la Vera," from the Extremadura region of western Spain.

Smoked paprika's uses in savory dishes are almost endless. It lays down an extra level of flavor in chilis, soups and stews; sparks up sauces, scrambled eggs or omelets; makes your deviled eggs or spiced nuts deliciously different.

Essential to the Spanish red-pepper-and-almond sauce called romesco, smoked paprika complements most Southwestern flavors as well.

Rub meats with it to add a subtle smoked flavor without actual smoking. Banish the blahs from rice, potatoes or casseroles with it. Drizzle olive oil flavored with smoked paprika over steak, chicken, fish or vegetables.

When cooking, be wary of scorching smoked paprika, lest it turn it bitter. With food cooked over high heat -- grilled meats, for example -- add it toward the end of cooking. In making sauces or stews, saute it first in a little oil or butter with your onions or other aromatics, or blend it with a little water or broth into a smooth paste before adding it.

In gourmet markets and online, expect to pay between $4 and $7 for a tin of 2.5 to 3 ounces. Like many ground spices, ground paprika loses its flavor quickly; you can store it in the freezer.

Leslie Crawford

Christopher Columbus carried it on his second voyage to the Americas. Hernando de Soto, discoverer of Florida, would not have left home without it. George Washington made it on his farm in Mount Vernon.

Today, sadly, Americans are denied a Spanish delicacy enjoyed by their forebears. It is against US law to import jamón ibérico - the hind leg of an Iberian pig, hoof attached, swaddled in fat, covered in a thin green layer of protective mould, occasionally sprouting wiry black pig hair - because Spain does not have a single slaughterhouse that conforms to the regulations of the US Department of Agriculture.

While its appearance may offend more sensitive souls, the taste of jamón ibérico inspires a cult-like devotion among international foodies. This caviar of cured hams gets its sweet, nutty flavour because Iberian pigs are allowed to roam the oak forests of western Spain where they feast on nothing but wild acorns.

Devotees include Alain Senderens, chef of the Michelin three-star Lucas Carton restaurant in Paris, and Joel Robuchon, a chef whose bespoke hams are tagged and cured at Carnicas Joselito in the town of Guijuelo, two hours west of Madrid. Joselito hams cost between $600 (£310) and $1,000, with a minimum purchase of 50. There is a five-year waiting list and no secondary market.

Another waiting list is building up at tienda.com, an online purveyor of Spanish food based in Williamsburg, Virginia. For a $250 deposit, customers get the right to buy a jamón ibérico when it finally becomes legal in the US.

Don Harris, a former US navy chaplain who runs Latienda with his family, says he has 250 investors on his books. "It has become the thing," he says. "That obscure object of desire which Americans just can't get."

Some impatient Americans have broken the law in the quest to smuggle a few slices of jamón ibérico past the "beagle brigade" at US customs.

But the penalties are stiff, and the chances of being caught, since September 11 2001, are much greater than before. Mr Harris says one Californian woman was fined $2,000 for trying to smuggle in a chorizo ibérico - not even the real ham. She got off lightly. Jamón smugglers face federal prosecution, 10-year jail sentences and $50,000 fines.

Fortunately, the taste of jamón ibérico, sliced thinly and spread over bread rubbed with tomatoes and olive oil, may soon cease to be an illicit pleasure in the US.

Mr Harris has reached an agreement with Covap, one of the four top producers of jamón ibérico in Spain, which will supply Latienda with jamones as soon as its new abattoir in Córdoba is certified by the US Department of Agriculture.

"We don't have a firm date yet, but we expect Covap to clear the US regulatory hurdles in the first four months of 2005," Mr Harris says. With the curing of ibérico ham taking from 18 months to three years, he expects to be able to import his first jamones ibéricos in July 2007.

The writer is the FT's Madrid bureau chief.

These snacks have enough flavor and style to buy you precious time to mingle (or cook) at your next party.

Marcona almonds are more delicate in texture than standard almonds; they come fried in oil and sprinkled with sea salt; tienda.com.

Wild Mushroom Medley Stix from Terra update a retro snack shape with flavors of champignon, porcini, and shiitake mushrooms ($5 for 7.5 ounces; go to terrachips.com for stores).

Wasabi soy nuts punch up parties ($3 for 1 pound; llehivalleycountrystore.com).

Blake Gopnik

Madrid -- It's every critic's nightmare. You're asked to visit a museum devoted to a subject you know nothing about. It's full of objects without a single link to all the other things you've written on. And there are no texts or catalogue to help you along. You've got nothing more than fuzzy impressions of what makes one exhibit different from another, and a vague, untutored sense of which things you like and which you don't.

For the duration of your visit, that is, you're in the same boat as most visitors to most museums.

Except that you're supposed to write about the stuff so convincingly that a million or so readers will put off checking out Woodward or Kornheiser to spend some time with you.

So here goes: "Salty and nutty, with a fruity sweetness underlying it, a beautiful rose-hip-tea transparency and a pleasant tooth."

That, I'm afraid, is about as far as my critical acumen will go, despite repeat visits to various branches of Madrid's Museo del Jamon, the Museum of Ham. The Museo sometimes seems to rival the Prado -- no, make that displace the Prado -- in the affections of Madrilenos. For all the masterpieces hanging on its walls, come lunchtime the Prado is rarely as mobbed as the museum hung with hams.

The Museo del Jamon (pronounced "hamON") is not truly a museum. It's a typically Spanish blend of deli, restaurant and bar, conceived 26 years ago to cater to the Spaniards' ham obsession. The Museo is an entirely for-profit enterprise, with several outlets across the city. But it has a dedication to the product it displays that bears witness to an aesthetic, curatorial purpose. If it doesn't have a sense of mission quite as high-flown as the National Gallery of Art, it's at least as noble as Washington's moneymaking Spy Museum.

The walls of the Museo are hung with hams in pretty much the way art galleries show pictures. Floor to ceiling, upstairs and down, the walls and rafters proudly display the vast range of cured hog legs for sale, sometimes complete with tiny black trotters.

No doubt the hams need to be stored in the open to keep correctly. And maybe the cigarette smoke adds a certain tang. But there's clearly museum-style pleasure to be had in contemplating the exquisite subtleties of all the wares on show. The spread is like a grand old Dutch still life, with the advantage that after you've had a look, you get to taste as well.

There are rare, government-certified iberico de bellota hams. Such deluxe hams must be cut from heirloom breeds of long-legged, black-hoofed Iberico pigs, range-fed only on acorns (bellotas) from the same oak trees harvested for cork. They are dried for many months in mountain air, and can come from only six areas in Spain whose terroirs merit classification. (The generic term serrano, used to describe cured ham in Spain, means "from the mountains.")

Other fine meats at the Museo may not rate official certification, but they still proudly announce their place of origin: One wall displays a raft of hams labeled murciano (from Murcia, a small area on Spain's eastern coast); another side of the bar is decorated with a mass of swine legs from the region of Extremadura, where Spain meets Portugal (the only source for great serrano ham, according to some Spaniards -- especially the Extremadurans). True jamon critics clearly know their schools of ham, the way a connoisseur of paintings might prefer the masters of Rome to anyone from Venice, while recognizing the virtues of both.

The Museo serves hams at every level of cost and quality. There are young, machine-sliced meats, pale and light as Italian prosciutto crudo. And there is leathery, mahogany-brown stuff sawed at by countermen whose knives have been sharpened almost to the point of disappearance. (Like a museum neophyte who still prefers Renoir to Manet, I rather liked the paper-thin, regular slices of younger flesh. It might take another year or 10 of sophisticated tasting to fully appreciate the ancient, salty, chewy flakes of jamon granadino that I was also served.)

The ham of Spain has all the markers of Old Master art. Like fine painting, jamon has a wide range of meanings -- at least for those brought up to make them out. It can speak about proud hispanidad, but also about its breakdown into a range of fiercely local loyalties. It also speaks of how the modern plays off against the old, like a Renaissance picture on an ancient Roman theme. (Those hanging hams are lit by raw fluorescent lights, Rembrandts in a roomful of Flavins; they are surrounded by lively cell phone conversation.) Jamon speaks to class and status: A veteran workman spending a morning's pay on a plate of old-fashioned ham is different from a pampered teen who buys jamon iberico to show off his taste and his parents' newfound wealth.

Like other works of art, jamon iberico also provides purely formal, sensory pleasures. A wide-ranging tasting of jamon feels like a stroll through the Prado: There are hams in swirling pink and white like something out of Rubens, and hams in stormy, late-Titian red; there are hams that have the lightness on the tongue of a Murillo virgin rising up to Heaven, and precious, tough old hams that evoke Ribera's hermit saints.

All this isn't mere hyperbole. I'm not just citing the Old Masters as a metaphor for how good jamon can get. It's meant as a serious assertion of this ham's claims to artfulness. Jamon works within the kinds of parameters that make for a single, coherent, aesthetic language -- you could say the jamon laws create a kind of formal grammar -- while allowing a vast range of subtle difference to take root within those bounds.

Like museum-certified fine art, jamon has ancient pedigree, which makes each new leg of pork the latest link in a chain of stable tradition. And it has variety, because of a past punctuated now and then, here and there, by transforming innovation.

Experts more or less agree on a canon of jamon greatness. And fiercely disagree on where each ham ranks within the canon.

There's even a market that reflects that canon: The true connoisseur will pay well over $100 for a hand-sliced pound of masterpiece jamon. (At the highest end, jamonistas don't frequent the Museo del Jamon; it's a mid-level chain that services a less extravagant clientele.) The only thing that's lacking in the art world of jamon, as far as I can tell, is a radical contemporary wing. I've yet to come across a juniper-cured haunch of iberico pig finished with a vanilla-saffron rub.

But maybe it will come, if critics develop tastes and terms to do it justice.

Spanish serrano ham -- though not certified jamon iberico, which does not yet meet USDA importation rules -- can be had at the Dean & DeLuca store at 3276 M St. NW, at the Balducci's chain in the Washington area or on the Web at www.tienda.com and other gourmet sites.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Castles, Caves and Prized Pigs in Southern Spain
Christopher Clarey


My first contact with the Sierra de Aracena came in a tapas bar in Seville, more than an hour's drive from the region. Casa Roman was and remains a cacophonous, atmospheric place full of smoke-streaked oil paintings and wooden stools; of neatly dressed, slick-haired locals; and of tourists trying their best to keep their guidebooks tucked out of sight.

Casa Roman became my family's neighborhood watering hole during the many years we lived in Seville's labyrinth of an old city. Yet the bar was renowned not for its ambience, but for its ham. And it is where, in 1996, I first tasted the Spanish acorn-fed variety, jamón ibérico de bellota, that comes from the Sierra de Aracena, the hill country northwest of Seville.

The Spanish have long considered it the world's finest ham, and the world is increasingly in agreement, even though it remains, at least for another year or two, impossible to buy it in the United States.

At Casa Roman, as in many Spanish restaurants, the hams dangle like stalactites from the rafters. As you snuggle up to the bar and reach for your glass of Cruzcampo beer or Fino Quinta sherry, you find your nose only a few inches from the moist, mold-streaked piece of cured meat that is still sweating just enough to require the appendage of a small white cup to trap the occasional drop of golden fat that oozes down its sides at a leisurely, Andalusian pace.

"Our good customers like to say, 'Serve me a ham that cries,' " said Rafael Escobar, a 65-year-old Sevillano who began working behind the bar at Casa Roman in 1983.

Up so close, the smell is vaguely sweet, vaguely musty. But once the ham has been carefully, artfully sliced into thin, dark red, nearly translucent rectangles and placed before you with requisite pride on a plain white plate, the taste is anything but vague: It is an unctuous blend of tender, nutty flesh and savory fat that does not quite melt in your mouth, which is for the best considering that you are in no hurry for it to go away.

Unlike some of the other best things in life, jamón de bellota was not an acquired taste. It was something to relish from the start, even for my two very young daughters, who would devour it by the plateful at no small expense considering that a plateful often costs 15 euros ($18.50) or more. As the weeks turned into months and then years, my family and I began making regular pilgrimages to the region where these remarkable hams were produced.

The Sierra de Aracena has long been a popular weekend retreat for Sevillanos, and it is a place of subtle charm rather than lunge-for- your-camera splendor: much more the Berkshires than the Grand Tetons. None of its peaks exceed 3,000 feet. Its rustic, whitewashed villages are not as postcard-ready as the artfully tended hill towns of Tuscany or the spectacularly situated white towns like Ronda that lie to the southeast of Seville. If you are looking for a week of elaborate, high-end cuisine, you're much better off heading to the rolling countryside of Burgundy or Catalonia.

But there is a roughhewn authenticity in the stone walls, wooded pastureland, medieval castles and unpretentious bars and restaurants of the Sierra de Aracena. It is an area best visited in spring or autumn - the winters are clammy and the summers hot - and when we returned in April for three days of hiking, exploring and eating, it was, as always, not quite enough.

The best-known town is Jabugo, famous because it is the center of the ham industry. The sound of its name is enough to make most Spaniards start scouting for a place to have lunch, but aficionados know that Jabugo is not the only town in this region that produces top-quality ham. Producers like Lazo in Cortegana and Chacón in Cumbres Mayores also have excellent reputations. And, from a scenic perspective, Jabugo, with its scruffy outskirts and inelegant mix of old and modern facades, is hardly the highlight of a region that extends from the clifftop town of Zufre in the east to Aroche in the west, close to the Portuguese border.

The area, part of a protected region that regulates further development, is at its most appealing on the meandering two-lane road of uneven quality that leads from the town of Aracena to Cortegana through rolling, wooded scenery, passing through the hamlets of Linares de la Sierra, Alájar and our family's favorite, Almonaster la Real.

Almonaster's exclamation point is its small jewel of a mezquita, or Moorish mosque, with an attached bullring. The mezquita dates from the 10th century and is the only significant Islamic building in the Sierra. The mosque, with its red brick arcades, is rarely used for worship, and the bulls are fought next door just once a year in mid- August. But the view from the mezquita's steps at sunset - with the undulating green hills changing tones before you - is there in all seasons, and it is one of the finest in these mountains.

It has competition, however, including the more exposed, panoramic view from atop the battlements in Cortegana's well-restored castle, which was part of the defenses built throughout the region in the late 13th and 14th centuries after the reconquest of this part of Spain from the Moors.

A more isolated fortress across the border in Portugal is a scenic detour: north of Aroche to Barrancos and then along a lonely seven- mile dirt track to the castle of Noudar, a birdwatcher's delight that sits high above a big bend in the Ardila River. From Aroche, reaching Noudar takes about an hour, and you can drive to the castle or stop and park when it comes into view and hike the other mile or three. We
hiked, which was good for the constitution but not for the reward. We just missed closing time at 5 p.m. and had to peek through slits in the gate to glimpse the resident sheep, goats and guard dogs of this fortified medieval village that was home to 300 people and is now home to a caretaker and his livestock.

Back on the much more beaten track in Aracena the following day, we arrived in time to revisit one of Europe's most remarkable caves - the Gruta de las Maravillas - whose entrance point is not in a remote valley but in the middle of town. Open to visitors since 1914, it has long been the primary tourist magnet in the region, and the cobblestoned path that leads to the entrance is lined with souvenir shops, ham emporiums and restaurants, although the better restaurants are found elsewhere in this pleasant, attractive town of about 7,000.

The remnants of the city's Moorish castle loom overhead, but what is below is more spectacular: more than a mile of mineral formations, crystalline pools and chambers with apt names like the Cathedral. In nearly a century of human impact and less-than-optimal lighting have damaged the cave's integrity, generating algae and lichen growth on some of its features, it is worth the walk and the often cramped
quarters.

But the destination should not be the absolute priority in the Sierra de Aracena, which is best treated not as a checklist but as a wandering zone. It is a place to follow the small footpaths that link villages; a place to catch a glimpse of that monastery perched high above the road and try to find a way to reach it; a place to walk into a noisy, humble local restaurant full of families whose children keep migrating from the table to the street and to order a glass of sherry or red wine from Rioja to go with some dish, any dish that comes from the local pigs.

You see the pigs frequently as you travel here, and they hardly resemble the lumbering pink variety that produce fillings for American sandwiches. Iberian pigs are smaller, darker and hairier, with comparatively long and slender legs. They are the descendants of wild boars, although they scatter in a hurry if you make a brusque movement. Their color is where the term pata negra (black leg) originates, and breeders of pata negra maintain that what really separates their pigs from the rest of the world's herd is their unusual metabolism, which allows fat to permeate into their muscles, giving the meat the sort of marbled quality that Texas ranchers appreciate.

The pigs' active lives help in that process. In late October, they are sent into the dehesa - the wooded pastures of Andalusia - for the montanera, where amidst the holm oaks and cork oaks that cover the Aracena region, they stuff themselves on grass and acorns during the fattening process before the slaughter. It has been estimated that each pig will eat 1,000 pounds of acorns or more during the next
three months.

After the slaughter, which in Spanish translates as "the sacrifice," they are packed in sea salt for one day for each kilogram (2.2 pounds) of weight and then kept in two types of storage rooms to sweat. From cradle to grave to tapas bar, the process takes at least two years, and though the clientele remains largely Spanish, that is beginning to change.

Top French chefs like Alain Ducasse have also become converts, and several restaurants in Paris now specialize in "Jabugo." There is increasing demand in Japan, and though true jamón ibérico has long been banned in the United States because no Spanish slaughterhouse or curing facilility met United States Department of Agriculture standards, that changed in July when a small producer in northern Spain became the first to receive a permit to export to the United States. Some producers from Aracena are also seeking permits, and one American online store, La Tienda in Williamsburg, Va., is taking preorders on Iberian hams for 2007 or 2008 (estimated price is $800 to $1,000 per ham).

Nonetheless, enjoying the best that the Sierra de Aracena has to offer in the United States won't have the same subtle appeal (or price tag) as enjoying it in the Sierra de Aracena, where the mood and the crowds remain agreeably light, and where the black pigs meet their makers after a long, sweet feed under the oak trees.