Porco

Pork Chops and Beer - Rebecca Dwan
Karen Swaine's Pork Chops
Roasted and Glazed Loin of Pork - Roberta Lovatelli
Vindaloo - Ray Martin
Pigs Feet
             Trotters - Jean A.
             Pigs Trotters - Peter Mackay
             Crubeens - Ray Martin
             Serving Pigs Feet - Kyle Lerfald
             Tyree's Souse - Edmund Burton
Toad-in-the-Hole
             Adam Quinan
             Astrid Bear
             Adam Quinan
             Doug Essinger-Hileman
             Astrid Bear
             Phil Johnson
Sausage
             Chorizo - Roberta Lovatelli
             Chorizo - Satyam
             Ibizenco Chorizo - Sara Waterson
             Bangers (Oxford Sausages) - Patrick Tull
What is a Sausage Roll? (Pigs-in-a-Blanket?, Chicago Hot Dog?)
             Pigs-in-a-Blanket - Astrid Bear
             Pigs-in-a-Blanket - Doug Essinger-Hileman
             Sausage Rolls - Peter Mackay
             Sausage Rolls - Adam Quinan
             Sausage Rolls - Roger Marsh
             Chicago-style Hot Dog - Bob Saldeen
             Breakfast Sausage - Biscuits and Gravy - Bob Saldeen
Pfaelzer Saumagen - David Strother
Pork Medallions with Mushrooms and Marsala
Lomito al Cabrales, Roasted Pork Tenderloin in a Spanish Cabrales Blue Goat Cheese Sauce and Mushrooms
Tyree's Souse - Edmund Burton
Jamón Ibérico
             Dave Pacek Asks...
             Ray Martin
             Antonio Amador
             Jaap Fabriek
Other Jamón
             Astrid Bear
             Tommy Armstrong
Crackling - Roger Marsh

Pork Chops and Beer - Rebecca Dwan
Our favorite is a Germanic sort of dish. We get pork chops, not too thick (or expensive), brown them in a big nonstick pan, add some sliced onions, brown a bit more, then pour in some beer, which makes a delicious cloud. When it cooks down some, add applesauce, pitted prunes, bay leaf, thyme, and some carrots and celery. Cover and simmer for a while; serve with corn muffins and other good things like red cabbage and green beans.
Proportions and amounts? Sorry, never wrote 'em down. Maybe half a bottle of beer depending on the amounts of other ingredients.

Karen Swaine's Pork Chops
I wanted to pass along my technique for pork chops. Put them in an inch of cold water (or 1/2 red wine) some garlic cloves, salt, pepper, sage or thyme or rosemary (or any combo) cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Remove cover and let liquid evaporate. Brown them in their own fat. Mash the garlic. The meat is so tender is falls off the bone.
This doesn't work with those very lean boneless chops.
Re boneless pork loins, I never really got the hang of roasting them so that they stay tender; they always dry out (altho I seem to recall having soaked one in milk before roasting it, and it was good). Nope, but for many years now I've been using pork tenderloins -- one serves 3 or 4 people - and no matter whether I saute in fry pan, grill outside, marinate or not, brown and bake in oven --- they cook in about 20 minutes and are always tender and delicious.

Roasted and Glazed Loin of Pork - Roberta Lovatelli
One 4 1/2 to 5 pound loin of pork (10 chops)
2 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2-3 Tbs ginger (I love ginger)
1/4 tsp powdered cloves (I grate fresh ones)
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place pork with the fatty side up in the roasting pan. With your hands rub on the meat some salt and pepper. Roast for 35 minutes to the pound or until it reaches 170 degrees F. In the meantime, in a saucepan, mix the orange juice, sugar, ginger and cloves together. Simmer for 30 minutes and brush the glaze on the roast, at least twice, during the last half hour of roasting time.

Vindaloo - Ray Martin
Serves 6:
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
2-3 HOT dried red chillies
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (you may take the seeds out of pods if you cannot buy them loose)
A 3 inch stick of cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons whole black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds
5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
10 tablespoons vegetable oil
6-7 ounces onions, peeled and sliced into fine half-rings
4-6 tablespoons plus 8fl oz water
2 lb boneless pork shoulder meat, cut into 1 inch cubes [or lamb or beef, as you wish]
A 1 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
A small, whole head of garlic, with all the cloves separated and peeled (or the equivalent, if using a large one [AT THE VERY LEAST] )
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
A splendid vindaloo receipt, redolent of the Raj.
Grind cumin seeds, red chillies, peppercorns, cardamom seeds, cinnamon, black mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds in a coffee-grinder or other spice grinder. Put the ground spices in a bowl. Add the vinegar, salt and sugar. Mix and set aside.
Heat the oil in wide, heavy Pot over a medium flame. Put in the onions. Fry, stirring frequently, until the onions turn brown and crisp. Remove the onions with a slotted spoon and put them into the container of an electric blender or food processor. (Turn the heat off.) Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of water to the blender and puree the onions. Add this puree to the ground spices in the bowl. (This is the vindaloo paste). It may be made ahead of time and frozen.) [Good idea]
Dry off the meat cubes with a paper towel and remove large pieces of fat, if any.
Put the ginger and garlic into the container of an electric blender or food processor. Add 2 - 3 tablespoons of water and blend until you have a smooth paste.
Heat the oil remaining in the pot once again over a medium-high flame. When hot, put in the pork cubes, a few at a time, and brown them lightly on all sides. Remove each batch with a slotted spoon and keep in a bowl. Do all the pork this way. Now put the ginger- garlic paste into the same pot. Turn down the heat to medium. Stir the paste for a few seconds. Add the coriander and turmeric. Stir for another few seconds. Add the meat, any juices that may have accumulated as well as the vindaloo paste and 8 fluid oz water. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer gently for an hour or until pork is tender. Stir a few times during this cooking period. {You might have to add a little more water.) {I find the flavour improves if the curry is made a day before consumption, but I can hardly ever wait that long}.
Serve with mounds of fluffy, preferably Basmati, rice. Ice cold lager-beer (there isn't a wine that can survive this, I think), pickles and chutney to taste.
Go on. If you can handle chili con carne, you can handle a vindaloo!

Pigs Feet
Trotters - Jean A.
Pickled pigs' feet are not that exotic or even Southern!
They have always been readily available up here in the far north, and even come into The Canon, I believe, as 'trotters', which is what Stephen would have called them.

Pigs Trotters - Peter Mackay
Pigs trotters used to be available in delicatessens, a glutinous, gristly, bony treat to be gnawed and mumbled upon in privacy.

Crubeens - Ray Martin
Wouldn't Stephen have known pig's feet as "crubeens", which I believe that they were, and are, a pub snack in Ireland (although I will bow to the superior knowledge of our Irish Lissuns on this).

Serving Pigs Feet - Kyle Lerfald
Which smoked trotters is nice but NEVER without beer! Say a fine stout ale, and some decent cheese, and apples or grapes for 'tween.

Toad-in-the-Hole
Adam Quinan
Toad in the Hole is my Canadian born children's favourite dish - it is English style sausages baked in a Yorkshire pudding batter in a roasting tin and served with a good gravy and vegetables boiled till they are almost mush.

Astrid Bear
I'm thinking the bangers should be already cooked to brown, juicy goodness before slipping into the batter.

Adam Quinan
You don't have to brown the sausages first. The exposed parts of the sausages brown up nicely at the temperature, the lower covered parts do look a bit pale but the sausages are cooked through.Serving it with an onion gravy is nice.

Doug Essinger-Hileman
Browning develops flavor -- caramelizing some sugars. So one might want to brown the sausages first, even though they'll cook through later.

Astrid Bear
I cooked the sausages all the way, and put them on the pudding when I turned down the heat, which another recipe suggested. The implication was that the pudding would still be somewhat soft, and sausages would sink into it, or be poked in. However, mine was almost cooked through, so they just rested on top.
Onions were cooked till soft first, then put in the baking dish along with the fat (leftover duck fat from the holidays!). The fat melted in the hot oven, and the onions sizzled nicely, but unfortunately, when I poured the batter in, the onions mostly slid to the outside edges of the dish and ended up poking out of the batter and getting quite blackened. Next time, I'll drop the sautéed onions on top of the batter after it's in the pan.
And onion gravy does sound like a nice idea.

Phil Johnson
It's best to use a fairly heavy dish or roasting tin (enameled cast iron is ideal). Put in the (fairly hot) oven with the fat and sliced onions to heat up (usually recommend beef dripping, but duck of goose fat is even better).
Meanwhile, brown the sausages lightly on all sides, with a bit more browning on one side to develop the flavour; the sausages should not be cooked through.
By this time the pan should be hot and the onions starting to brown. Put the pan (roasting tin) on the hob over a hot plate on high. Pour in a thin layer of batter, pushing the onion back into place with a fork if necessary. When the batter is just beginning to stiffen, place the sausages in the tin and pour on the rest of the batter. Return to the oven and lower the heat to medium. Should be ready in about 30-40 minutes.
The point is to get light, well risen batter, it should go onto really hot fat, which is not allowed to cool as the batter hits is.

Sausage
Chorizo - Roberta Lovatelli
1 1/2 pounds Portuguese linguica or Spanish chorizo
2 tsp oil
The recipe calls for the sausages to be sauteed in the oil over very low heat until they are heated through (15 to 20 minutes). I generally grill them until done and pinch them with a fork so the fat dribbles out a little. If you cannot get the Portuguese or Spanish sausages, use the Italian sweet or hot. Make sure they are cooked well. If you can find some smoked sausages, it would improve the taste of the mix.

Chorizo - Satyam
The 'chorizo' is quite Castillian. Notice that Madrid has become a separate region/province in the last decades, much like Washington DC is separate from the neighboring states, and it was taken from the surrounding Castilla la Vieja and Castilla la Nueva (the old and the new) currently Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha. Anyway, though Madrid has some traditions separate from Castilla, Madrid being a large city while Castilla is mostly countryside, in most things Madrid is Castillan.
Chorizo translates to sausage, but in Spain it specifically refers to a pork sausage preserved with lots of paprika (at least I guess paprika is the English for 'pimentón picante'), so much so that it is red and dyes red anything cooked along with it. I'm sure you could skip the tomato on the recipe and still get a red broth. Like what Americans call 'pepperoni' but ground coarser and more spicy.
There is a saying here 'To each pig its Saint Martin' - 'A cada chancho le llega su San Martín', referring to the day of Saint Martin of Tours, Nov. 11th, when pigs were slaughtered because at that point they were as fat as they were going to get, the weather was already cold enough but still dry, so hams and sausages could be done and preserved nicely. At that point, they salted, cured, smoked or applied any imaginable process to preserve the meat. My father used to say that the only thing lost of a pig were the screams. If they only had a tape recorder! Chorizo is made of everything that won't go into ham and won't be eaten fresh. Ground, salted and mixed with lots of paprika and stuffed in the guts of the very same pig.
I figure the very same thing could be said of all peoples where the weather forced them to kill some of the animals which you would otherwise have to feed with scarce winter food stuff. That meat had to be preserved, and there were so many ways to do it. Chickens, on the other hand, give eggs all year round and are cheap to feed. As with most old recipes, it just developed out of necessity.
I know a lady who doesn't like Tortilla. In Spain tortilla is not the Mexican tortilla, but a potato omelette. It is enormously popular here. Nevertheless, that was the only thing they had at home (when they did have that much), when she was a child, in the famine after the Civil War. On the other hand, a friend of mine couldn't move his grandmother from her home because she wouldn't go without her chickens. Of course that they were not the same ones that had saved her life by providing eggs for her and her family, but she feared not having chickens at home. And she planted foodstuff in every pot she found (and so did my grandmother who also had chickens but didn't mind to get rid of them when she grew too old to take care of them).
After all, what are croutons if not yesterday bread recycled? Given the same circumstances, the same recipes develop.

Ibizenco Chorizo - Sara Waterson
I've got some Ibizenco chorizo downstairs in the fridge... very tasty too. There, the chorizo is made in a big sausage, that is cured in the large intestine casing, and sliced diagonally across VERY thinly, so it's almost translucent. In the narrower versions or chorizo which they tend to export to England, it's cut thicker, and tends to be pretty hard and chewy.
In Ibiza, and I think most parts of Spain, chorizo implies "chorizo piquante", ie: it contains hot pimento as well as paprika for the colouring. The sausage in Ibiza which is cured purely with paprika is called sobresada, and is quite soft and chewy, and has no kick at all.
I made chorizo when we killed the pig in France one year, using both paprika and a little chilli, and using the small intestine as casing. It still took a very long time to harden up, hung up in the rafters, but was very good in the end. But chewy! I can provide a recipe if anyone can get sausage casings and wants to give it a go.
There's a great dessert too from Ibiza, called flaoun, which is an egg and ground almond mixture flavoured with sugar and thyme, in a pastry case. Just finished my last sliver... Still got a few figs tho, I'm making 'em last...

Bangers (Oxford Sausages) - Patrick Tull
8 oz ground veal
8 oz ground pork
1 cup shredded suet
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1/4 tsps grated nutmeg
1 tsps sage
Pinch of thyme, savory and marjoram
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 egg yolks
Mix all ingredients except the egg yolks together, then bind with the egg yolks. Roll into sausage shapes and fry in a little butter for approximately 10 mins, turning frequently.

What is a Sausage Roll? (Pigs-in-a-Blanket?, Chicago Hot Dog?)
Pigs-in-a-Blanket - Astrid Bear
I thought Pigs in a Blanket was breakfast sausages wrapped up in pancakes.

Pigs-in-a-Blanket - Doug Essinger-Hileman
In Pennsylvania, Pigs in a Blanket are hot dogs wrapped in dough, then cooked.

Sausage Rolls - Peter Mackay
A sausage roll is an Australian staple. Companion to the meat pie, a sausage roll is a "sausage" made of sausage meat without the skin, encased in a tube of flaky pastry, sold by the million every day. A meat pie is an individual meal, twice the size of the traditional English pork pie, lower and wider, often square in plan, containing mince and savoury gravy. Both are served hot, often with a squirt of tomato sauce.
Hot dogs are not unknown here, and I don't mind one at a baseball game with a generous dollop of mustard, though my own preferences is for kransky instead, with hot English mustard and fried onions. Wakes your mouth right up it does.

Sausage Rolls - Adam Quinan
You can find sausage rolls as described by Peter here in Canada too, common for church socials and tea parties. I think they are English in origin and spread to the more recent colonies. In Canada, you can also get the rolls of sausage meat for slicing and frying or for mixing up with bread crumbs etc. to stuff your turkey.

Sausage Rolls - Roger Marsh
Adam Quinan said, of sausage rolls: "I think they are English in origin and spread to the more recent colonies."
They are indeed.
Peter Mackay said: "a sausage roll is a "sausage" made of sausage meat without the skin, encased in a tube of flaky pastry, sold by the million every day."
I could not describe them better, and this is exactly what they are, in the UK the large ones are the staple of picnics and snacks, and small ones often a component of finger-buffet occasions, when served cold; also much offered hot (microwaved) as take-away lunchtime snacks.
Their quality and delectability is considerably variable, from the heavy and stodgy to the lighter and fairly tasty.
The English raised meat pie (most often pork) is something else again, not as described by Adam and always served cold, often with hot mustard - or again, carried on a picnic.
The Bratwurst, Frankfurter or Wiener suggested as alternatives cannot quite fulfil the cold and highly-portable picnic requirement, of course, kostlich though they be.

Chicago-style Hot Dog - Bob Saldeen
[For a Chicago-style hot dog] you need to lay in a supply of a few special ingredients:
Yellow Mustard (not the fancy stuff--the bright yellow kind)
Green sweet relish (should be electric green--unnaturally so)
Chopped onions
1 kosher dill pickle spear (cut a pickle in fourths, longwise)
tomato slices
sport peppers--two is plenty (they're little hot devils, about an inch or so long)
most important: celery salt.
If you can find 'em, poppy seed buns (ahem, "baguettes") are ideal.
These are the ingredients for a classic Chicago-style hot dog. You pretty much end up with a miniature salad on top of the dog. Celery salt over everything. Put them on the dog in the order listed.
And note that a chicago hot dog never carries the sinister ketchup/catsup. It's considered a major sin to put ketchup on a hot dog. That's what the tomatoes are for. I hear New Yorkers think ketchup is acceptable on a hot dog, but never here in the Windy City.

Breakfast Sausage - Biscuits and Gravy - Bob Saldeen
Breakfast sausage comes in rolls. There's no "skin" like on a hot dog, it's just the sausage meat packed in tube form. You then pull the tube back and cut off slices, to make sausage patties for breakfast.
Also, perfect for making the ideal winter breakfast food--"biscuits and gravy"---for the uninitiated, it's chunks of sausage in a milk gravy, poured over hot biscuits. Tends to be a southern US dish, although plenty o' northerners like me have caught on. You haven't lived until you've had B and G on a cold winter morning.

Pfaelzer Saumagen - David Strother
Bundeskanzler's favorite "Pfaelzer Saumagen" might be more appropriate for a truly nefarious occasion:
Ingredients:
3 pounds pork, mostly shoulder and neck
3 pounds blanched potatoes
3 pounds minced pork
Herbal mixture:
2-3 Tbsp salt
.5 tsp black pepper
.5 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp marjoram
.5 tsp ground coriander
.5 tsp ground cloves
.5 tsp thyme
.5 tsp ground cardamom
.5 tsp basil
bay leaves to taste
3 Tbsp diced onion
And then:
1 whole sow's stomach
more salt
2 Tbsp clarified butter
Cube the big stuff, mix it all up, and season.
Wash the stomach thoroughly and gently pat dry.
Suture two of the openings closed.
Through the third (never knew there was more than in and out, did you?) opening stuff the stomach, then suture. (Achtung! Nicht obergeshtuffen das magen oder gibts eine grosses und sehr messisches kaboom!)
Bring much salted water to boil in a very large pot. Reduce heat and gently slid the stomach in. Simmer for 3 hours.
Remove stomach, slice and serve.
Alternative: after simmering, brown the stomach in the clarified butter. Then bake in 400* oven until crisp. Slice and serve.
Serve with lots of bauernbrot, creamy salted buttered mashed kartoffeln, sauerkraut, and a medium-dry white from Rheinland-Pfalz.
Frau Kohl cheerfully adds that "Should there be leftovers, cut into slices the next morning and fry to a golden brown in butter."
As Julia would say: "Guten appetit, liebchen!"

Serving Pigs Feet - Kyle Lerfald
Which smoked trotters is nice but NEVER without beer! Say a fine stout ale, and some decent cheese, and apples or grapes for 'tween.

Pork Medallions with Mushrooms and Marsala
1-1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 shallots or green onions, finely chopped
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, divided
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
2/3 cup dry Marsala wine
1/3 cup chicken broth
Cut pork crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Flatten between sheets of waxed paper to 1/4-inch-thickness. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; dredge in flour.
Saute pork, in batches, in oil in large skillet over medium-high heat for 3 minutes per side or until golden. Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Drain fat from skillet. Saute shallots in 2 tablespoons butter in skillet 1 minute. Add mushrooms and saute for 1 minute more. Pour in Marsala and broth; cook to reduce by half.
Meanwhile, cut remaining butter into pieces. Remove skillet from heat. Stir in butter just until incorporated. Divide pork among 4 plates. Pour sauce over and serve immediately.

Lomito al Cabrales, Roasted Pork Tenderloin in a Spanish Cabrales Blue Goat Cheese Sauce and Mushrooms
Makes about 10 slices
For the sauce
half a large Spanish onion chopped
4-5 mushrooms sliced
blue cheese to taste (about 50g)
half a pint of Embleton Dairies double cream
olive oil
Fry onion with mushroom in olive oil until soft. Add blue cheese and cook until melted. Add cream and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes.
Slice about 300g into ten slices. Fry the pork in olive oil on a medium heat for about five minutes. Add the sauce and simmer until sauce has thickened (about 5-8 minutes).

Tyree's Souse - Edmund Burton
Printed from COOKS.COM
10 lg. pigs feet
4 lbs. pig ears
4 tbsp. or 1/4 c. salt
1 1/2 tbsp. crushed red pepper
2 c. white or cider vinegar
2 tbsp. sage
Wash the pig feet and ears in salted water.
In a large pot, put ears and feet with all ingredients. Cover with water and boil slowly until meat falls from the bones. When meat is done, allow to cool so you can pull all the meat from the bones. Cut the pig ears into tiny pieces. Mix meat well. Put the meat mixture into loaf pans. Cover with wax paper and refrigerate until firm.
If you like it spicier, add a little hot sauce before chilling.

Jamón Ibérico
Dave Pacek Asks...
While reading an article in this week's Economist on cured meat (what an exciting life I've been leading lately), I encountered the following taste-teasing comment:
"Jamón Ibérico - without question the most glorious use to which a pig can be put on this planet - has not been legally available in the United States until now, but will become so from 2007... "
Now, that's about as direct and emphatic a statement as one can get. Is it true? Do I, a guy who loves a good ham and never met a sausage he didn't like, have a real treat in store?

Ray Martin
It is best eaten in a small working-man's bar in Spain, where they tend to have a whole leg, reposing horizontally on a wooden stand, right on the bar. The walls should be tiled, and the floor should crackle underfoot with peanut shells. There should be a football match blaring from the tv, and a few regulars reading their newspapers or discussing life in general. A portion of jamón and a cerveza, or a cold sherry on a hot, hot day. Heaven!

Antonio Amador
Many people in the Peninsula would be very happy if they get access to the North American market for the jamón. I hope, if this access is granted, that doesn't happen as some other products, I mean, the best part of the production goes out there. I'd fight against this perspective. Also, I'm impressed by the knowledge of Jaap on the jamón, and not less impressed by the precision of the scene described by Ray.
As the closest Lissun to the honorable Spanish pigs, I'd like to add some words to this subject. Not that I want to disregard other peninsular regions, but the production of high quality ham is not the general rule all over Spain. Under the term "jamón" or "jamón serrano" you have very different kind of things. The best ham is called in some ways like "jamón ibérico", "jamón de pata negra" (literally "of black leg"), etc. This is the ham that some consider expensive. And the pig that can give it is the "cerdo ibérico". This pig is principally (if not only) found in the four south-west provinces (Huelva in Andalucia; Badajoz, Caceres, in Extremadura; and Salamanca - in Castilla) that are frontier with Portugal, and in the neighbour Portuguese region of el Alentejo and perhaps also in el Algarve. The rest of Spain has to come to these provinces to have this ham. This iberian pig is not so big as the traditional one that we usually call "white pig",(although it is not white, easily found all over the Peninsula, immersed in mud, dirty, and living like a prisoner). The colour of the fur of this iberian pig is dark-grey. And, as Jaap pointed out, the process of curing is very important and requires some conditions that are not available in all the peninsula. The four provinces mentioned are the best for this process.
Another important requisite is that the pig lives free in the "dehesa", among the "encinas"/holm-oaks, (the "alcornoques"/ cork-trees are valid too), which fruit, the "bellotas", must be the major part of the diet if you want to get that high quality ham (that's why also it is called "jamón de bellota"). Today the forest of encinas or alcornoques are not so available as previous ages, and the required weather conditions makes more difficult to get the ideal environment. So, it's normal that its price increases at the same time you go further from the south-west of the Peninsula.
The "matanza" (the ceremony of killing the pig) has to be done by an expert guy. Every year for Christmas, just down my balcony, a group of people gather for la matanza of a pig. They speak loud from early morning - men, women and children, eat, sing, and I'm pretty sure many of them drink a lot. They hire the expert, whose reward can be money, part of the killed pig, the right to drink, or perhaps a combination of the three. My wife and daughter get really sick. The noise of the pig crying is heard all over the street, while the people drink and laugh. It's not a short ceremony. At least imho, and I'm sure the pig thinks as I do. Anyway, I have to accept that whole family eats jamón without sadness, and without thinking on the unfortunate creature.
All this makes me wonder about a couple of things regarding supplying a big Anglo-market with a traditional Spanish product in a permanent way, and perhaps I'm wrong, but I think it's a difficult task, at least in the case of the Spanish ham. But I stop here.

Jaap Fabriek
The best hams come from Spain, better even than the famous Italian Parma hams. When visiting Satyam in Barcelona I have feasted on them.
Satyam explained that after the Reconquista all Jews and Moors had to convert to Catholicism or leave or else... So there were quite some fake conversions and eating (lots of) pork became kind of a protection against unwanted attention from the Inquisition. Eating ham was a sign of being a good Christian and pork became dominant over beef or chicken on the Spanish menu.
On the other hand, the climate of Spain's interior with hot dry summers and cold winters is perfect for curing ham. The best qualities take 5 years of drying, smoking and maturing, loosing about 50% of their original weight in the process. Which partly explains the high pricing.
Another great treat is 'Bündnerfleisch' from Kanton Graubünden in Switzerland. This is top quality beef of cows raised in the mountains, slaughtered at a height of over 1,500 meters, slightly salted and spiced with nitre and other ingredients, then slowly dried at temperatures close to 0 degrees C and pressed under heavy stones to remove all water and make it more compact, the whole process to be done high on the mountain. I know of one shop in Amsterdam where it sells at over Ëuro 100 per kilogram but only 50 grams, sliced as thinly as a only a surgeon can, already is a treat for two! The German Wikipedia says there is some export to other European countries, Japan and the USA. But the clever Swiss keep most of it for themselves! No better cured meat did I ever eat.

Other Jamón
Astrid Bear
Speaking of hams, I saw Smithfield, or "country-style' hams available at the Eastern Market in DC, AND you could get thick steak-like slices or chunks of it as well. How nice to not have to invest in a whole or even half ham.
This is the sort of ham that is cured and salted so heavily that you have to soak it in several changes of water over 24 hours, then simmer, do an optional baking to finish with a glaze, then slice very thin. Sooo good!

Tommy Armstrong
And put on little biscuits or rolls with mustard flavored butter. A popular item of both my mother and grandmother who were quite the Southern caterers. Not sure if even make it anymore, but Waco, from Goldsboro was one of the best. Lots of good ones around here, though. Wafer thin is the key.

Crackling - Roger Marsh
Most proper roasting pork joints here in the UK are sold with skin / rind / potential crackling left on - not at all true in France, for example, where crackling is almost impossible to find except on special order to le boucher. The Spaniards seem to like it too, however. Evidently, the Chinese adore it as well.
My own recipe, originally my Mum&acric;s, is to score the rind if not already done by the butcher, rub salt into it AND olive oil (a cheap one will do fine). I start the joint off really hot for about 20 mins, say, at 220 degrees C, then reduce to around 180. Roast vegetables with it parboiled (just a little) potatoes and parsnips, for example (my kids just LOVE those), and whole onions and heads of garlic if I liked an economic use of oven heat too. Make real gravy; serve with some available steamed fresh green veg or other brassica AND definitely, for our classic English version, warm apple sauce, either a good commercial jarred one or home-made. Sage things are good with a roast pork joint too; our classic is sage and onion stuffing (made with breadcrumbs too).
This is NOT "la cuisine minceur"; watch your waistline!