Fellow foodie Sam Miller writes home from Spain — food, drink, and travel stories.
Yesterday MB and I decided to brave the windy roads and head down the coast to the city of Calpe. If you could look at all the pics we’ve sent from Moraira, Calpe is the city filled with high-rises in the background. Though I was feeling some trepidation about the drive, it turned out be a very easy trip. The beaches in Calpe were beautiful. Lovely white sand and huge waves - I almost lost my shorts! We stopped for some tapas at a beachside café called Restaurante El Paseo - croquettes, deep fried calamari and some Andalusian Gazpacho. All were very tasty, but not otherworldly. On the way home we stopped at a market called La Fustera (which, for all I know, could mean “the place where we rip off gringos”) and bought some questo campanello cheese (local & very creamy) and some Iberico ham.
Now, a little background about how cured ham works in Spain… Serrano ham is made from normal commercial white pigs and is salted then cured/aged from 6 to 18 months. The longer the cure the more pronounced and complex the flavours. Iberico ham is cured ham made from the native Iberico pigs of Spain. These pigs are descendents of wild boars common to Iberia. There are three grades of Iberico ham: The finest is called Imberico de Bellota which is finished on a diet of only wild acorns and is aged for up to 3 years; the next is jambon iberico de recibo which is ham finished on a combination of acorns and grain and is aged from 1 to 3 years; finally there’s jambon iberico de cebo which is raised and finished on grains alone and is again aged for 1 to 3 years.
Ours was of the de cebo ilk and cost about 55 Euros a kilo so I had to settle for only 100 grams. It was well worth the cost! It was very interesting to note the difference between the taste of the fat which still had hints of green meaty mould on its rind - almost like an earthy blue cheese – “hints of Stilton”, suggests MB - and the meat - sort of like meltingly soft bacon-flavoured candy. For dinner we supplemented the ham and cheese with some pickle-stuffed olives (I think the inventor of this cocktail was feeling a bit randy), some coarse & hearty store-made pate and some baby potatoes fried with whole garlic and spinach. We washed this down with a local red made of 100% tempranillo grapes which was delicious and cost less than 2 Euros!
(Source: carnalfare.weebly.com)
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