Jamón ibérico

Jamón ibérico (also Iberian ham, pata negra) is the dry-cured hind leg of a pig with at least 50% Iberian blood. Its name, label and timing are set by a Spanish quality standard, Real Decreto 4/2014: a three-part sale name, a numbered colour seal on every leg and curing of at least 600 or 730 days. It is a national standard, not a PDO.

Few people notice it, but every ham carries a tamper-proof mark with the week and year it went into salt, so you can work out its age yourself. The ham is the hind leg, bone and hoof included, of an adult pig; the foreleg is called paleta, the shoulder.

Read the label as a sentence of three parts in a fixed order: product, feeding, breed. For example, «Jamón de bellota 100% ibérico» or «Paleta de cebo de campo ibérica». Shortening the name or adding your own words is not allowed.

Breed first. «100% ibérico» means the animal and both parents are purebred and listed in the herd book. Plain «ibérico» means 75% or 50%: an Iberian sow crossed with a Duroc boar or a Duroc cross. In that case «% raza ibérica» must appear right next to the name.

Then feeding. «De bellota»: during the montanera the pig ate only acorns, grass and what the dehesa offers. «De cebo de campo»: feed made of cereals and legumes, plus outdoor range. «De cebo»: the same feed on an intensive farm. More on the page Iberian pig.

The seal colour repeats the name. Black is de bellota 100% ibérico, red is de bellota ibérico (50 or 75%), green is de cebo de campo ibérico, white is de cebo ibérico. Sliced packs carry a label in the colour of their leg's seal. And «pata negra»? Only the black category may use it; likewise «dehesa», «montanera» and acorn pictures belong to «de bellota» alone.

The leg is salted, washed and dried for a long time on the bone. Under the standard a ham under 7 kg cures at least 600 days from the day of salting, 7 kg or more 730 days, a shoulder 365. The sector association ASICI says that in practice it is usually years. On the cut, by its description, the meat is intense red with marbling and the fat shines and melts at a touch.

Jamón serrano has no rules on breed, feed or seals and cures from 210 days. The four Iberian PDOs, Guijuelo, Jabugo, Dehesa de Extremadura and Los Pedroches, follow this same standard plus their own stricter rules. How to carve and keep a leg is on the page How to carve jamón; for the wider picture see Jamón, Dry-cured hams and shoulders and Cured meats & charcuterie.

Why this matters to you: the word «ibérico» can mean a pig fattened on acorns or a pig on a feed farm. The seal colour and the three parts of the name tell you which faster than any picture of an oak tree.