GASTRONOMIC ROUTES

IBERIAN HAM ROUTE

To speak of good ham without thinking of the Iberian Pig is about as impossible as imagining it outside its pasture lands, rooting among acorns. This gastronomic route centres on the Iberian cured ham as an emblematic pork product and will bring your backpack to rest at the feet of tables and counters where pork will be shown off magnificently in any of its varieties that are as different and diverse as the art and taste of the experts to have seasoned them.

The world surrounding Iberian pig is full of flavours, smells and colours and can only be explained by walking around the countryside they live in. Some say that the Holm oak is a hanger for Iberian cured ham and those who establish a magical, irreproachable link between the Holm oak, the acorn and the Iberian pig are not mistaken.

The province of Badajoz preserves the best and most extensive pastureland that exists and the area chosen for the route is the most dense and productive. The Iberian pig is born, lives and dies in this paradise, the natural antechamber of Iberian cured ham. The pig is anthropologically the totemic animal of Extremadura locals and, gastronomically, their most prized product.

The entire route is pastureland. Beautiful and dense like a country garden. The pastureland is not just nature, its craftsmanship. It is a self-sufficient eco-system that provides all the necessary options for a rich, varied pantry. It is a sea of cork trees and Holm oaks, standing on a green bed of herbs and wild flowers that lovingly cradle the acorns falling from the heavy branches and keep and preserve them for the use and enjoyment of the pigs, which thankfully and generously turn them into ham.

The slaughter was a culinary myth of the region and the basis for traditional food, which meant that in both the kitchens of the rich and educated and those of the poor and needy, recipes were based on dishes formed by the wide variety of cuts from the slaughter and the calories in food was to lie in the lard and cured meats kept as an essential and sometimes unique food store.

Iberian cured ham comes strictly from the Iberian pig. The Iberian pig is probably the only genetically pure breed, which is a modern-day version of the pigs that reached the Iberian Peninsula at some point in the past from Mediterranean Africa. For it to be named Iberian acorn-fed ham, the pig must have lived solely off the land during the acorn season, which means that between October and February it can only feed on acorns and weeds.

Where the Iberian pig is fed at some time on fodder, its ham will be known as recebo and if it has never been in the pastureland it will be known as de cebo

The "Dehesa de Extremadura" Designation of Origin has become a guarantee of the representation and reliability of our hams that now compete with the best products of other Designations, despite being quite frankly of a higher quality thanks to the recognised dietetic value that recent important research has given to the Iberian cured ham as part of the Mediterranean diet.

Without wanting to offend – and less so our neighbours – Jerez de los Caballeros can be considered the cardinal point of the Iberian cured ham route and the start of the visit is the Ham Exhibition held during the second week in May that is, without a doubt, the best showcase for this product and for all pork by-products.

The main industrial and handcrafted varieties of the area are displayed in splendid, colouristic competition full of nuances. It is a pleasure to taste the wonderful portions that are naturally and traditionally cut on the different stands.

Also to be tried are the cañas de lomo (cured pork loin sausage), salchichón sausage or the spicy chorizo colorao sausage, all extremely traditional and very much made of Iberian pork.

Monesterio also has its ham festivity in September, where it invites all those present to a lovely baguette of Iberian cured ham and its many prestigious slaughterhouses and drying rooms are opened to the public. Any village on the route offers its own hams in healthy, closely-fought competition.

The village are all located in the Southern Sierra of the province at an average altitude of 500 metres and a special microclimate of dry winters and hot but not suffocating summers, which make the hams sweat the fat acquired during the acorn-feeding season before they are hung for no less than eighteen months in cellars to ensure their aromatic, tasty meats speckled with the necessary fat to make them nice and juicy are able to slowly mature.

Fregenal de la sierra, Higuera la Real, Segura de León, Cabeza la Vaca, Calera de León, Fuente de Cantos, Zafra, Oliva de la Frontera aforementioned Monesterio and Jerez de los Caballeros make up a route on which, despite beginning meals with cured Iberian ham and other cured meats, a rich variety of wild products can also be enjoyed, including wild asparagus, cardoons and truffles, all plentiful, healthy and fresh throughout the sierra. Dishes of assorted and sierra game such as partridges in oil or wood pigeon and rice.

In Fuente de Cantos, pork can be served with lamb stew. In Segura de León you can order pork with mushrooms, in Jerez de los Caballeros Templar-style pork loin and in Higuera la Real pork trotter stews. In terms of sweets and pastries, those from the Convent of “Las Clarisas” in Zafra and in Jerez de los Caballeros, the bollo turco and the desenfados are most notable. Wines are best from El Raposo and Matanegra.