Jamón de Serón

Appearance & taste

The ham is rounded and is offered with the hoof, with the rind or with a V-shaped cut in which the rind is removed. It weighs at least 8 kg. When cut, it is red and glossy, and the meat is partly marbled with fat. It tastes slightly sweet and only a little salty, and the aroma is medium to intense. The fat is supple, glossy and yellowish-white, tastes sweetish and has an intense aroma. The salt content is at most 5 %.

It is sold in two classes: “S-XVI” with more than 16 months and “S-XX” with more than 20 months of production. It can also be offered packed, boned or sliced. Each label is numbered consecutively.

Production

The legs come from sows and castrated boars of the Duroc, Large White, Landrace, Blanco Belga, Pietrain and Chato Murciano breeds or their crosses. Before bleeding they weigh at least 11 kg for the S-XVI class and 12.5 kg for S-XX. The fat layer is 2.5 cm thick for hams with the rind and 2 cm for hams with a V-cut.

In Serón the legs are received, bled, cured, washed, bled a second time, hung and salted again. According to the specification, the high fat content and the dry climate make it possible to use little salt. The hams then dry and ripen naturally for at least twelve months and are finally rubbed; the lard of a single pig is used for each.

At the end, the hams must have lost at least 35 % of their initial weight, otherwise they ripen for two months longer. If the V-cut is only made later, they must lose a further 3 %. During ripening the ham releases fat, the “sweating”: in warm temperatures and dry air, the fat moves outwards and is embedded in the muscle. According to the specification, this creates the intense aroma; the ham masters of Serón therefore speak of a “warm ham”.

Origin & history

Serón lies in the catchment of the Almanzora, according to the specification the driest river basin in Europe, in the province of Almería in semi-arid south-eastern Spain. There are around 3,000 hours of sunshine and less than 400 mm of rainfall a year; the mountains of the Sierras Subbéticas keep the rain fronts from the Atlantic away. The village lies high up in the valley on the northern slope of the Sierra de los Filabres at 800 to 900 m. The air is dry, with an average humidity of 55 % in summer and 70 % in winter. The winters are cool with occasional frost, the summers fresh, and light, dry north-westerly winds blow all year.

The large, fat-rich hams go back to the breeding and slaughtering practice of the farms, which the council of Serón laid down in ordinances in the 16th century and which applied into the 20th century. The pigs were selected from many breeds and kept on the farm for more than a year, which produced large hams with much embedded fat and a thick layer of fat. The drying facilities in Serón still select their legs by these characteristics today.