How to choose a good ham

The peak time for eating ham is fast approaching. The lucky ones amongst you will receive a ham as a Christmas present from their company or from a customer. Others will decide to buy one for festive family meals. And although everyone enjoys this tasty product, only the latter group face the dilemma of choosing a good ham.

As we produce several types of ham, we would obviously recommend our own, so what we’re going to do here is suggest several aspects to consider when choosing a piece.

Go to a specialist store

Hypermarkets are endangering the ecosystem of small stores that have been selling hams in villages, towns and cities for years. The enormous variety of products, amazing offers and the ease of shopping in a hypermarket have meant that small stores have had to specialise. Although they cannot compete in terms of volume, they can do so for quality. So, at La Estrella del Jamón, we would encourage you to buy a great ham from this type of store. Neighbourhood butchers are usually loyal to products that have been personally selected using their own experience and not just by price. Consequently, the staff behind the counter are not only familiar with the generic product – ham in this case – but the brand or brands that their store sells and, in many cases, the people who produce it and they might even have visited the drying areas where the hams are made and witnessed the process step by step. So, when you decide to spend your money on a ham, it’s best to buy one from a specialised store.

There are no great deals

A whole ham is not exactly cheap for many reasons, although it is not the most expensive product in terms of price per kg in deli meat. The primary reason is because we are buying a large quantity of meat in one go, generally more than 7 kg. Secondly, because this is a product that takes a long time and loses a lot of weight from when it is put in salt, known as the ‘merma’. Thirdly, despite not exactly being an ultra-processed food, there are costs derived from handling it and exposing it to possible problems during the curing time. For all these reasons, you should not be fooled by a deal. When the price of a ham is very low, it’s hiding something. Occasionally, there are hams that have barely been cured or that are excessively dry. Other times, this might be a labelling fraud. If it is none of these, we might be buying a low-cost ham that, apart from being illegal, has a negative knock-on effect on all workers in the sector.

Value for money

Another aspect to consider is to adapt the quality you are after to match your budget. The price range for ham is very wide, considering the many designations, types and curings that we might find. The lowest prices are for white pig hams. Within these, we can distinguish several types. The most basic of them is what is known as Cured Ham. These are uncertified pieces. They have usually been cured for a very short time, with high salt content to accelerate the elaboration process. The next price step up is Serrano Ham: this ham meets requirements for the Traditional Specialities Guaranteed (TSG) label that endorses it. Above this, there are hams with Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) that are Trevélez and Serón. The highest range of the white pig ham is Protected Designation of Origin Teruel Ham (PDO). If you wish to find out more about these differentiated quality brands, you can visit our post on them: Differences between PDO, PGI and TSG The prices of these hams usually match their quality. However, and due to curing and process differences between brands, this might not always be the case and you might find a serrano ham at a higher price than others with differentiated quality.
In the next price scale up, we find Iberian cured ham. Since 2014, the Iberian Ham Quality Standard compiles four types of this ham which are marked by four different coloured seals, covering two aspects: race purity and feed. To go no any further into this matter, we would recommend visiting the next post: Iberian seals.
The colour order will be as follows from the cheapest to the most expensive:
white – industrial feed ham,
green – natural range feed ham,
red – 50 or 75% crossed acorn-fed ham
and black – 100% Iberian acorn-fed ham.
Above the Iberian cured hams covered by the standard, we find the four Iberian Designations of Origin that are Jabugo, Dehesa de Extremadura, Los Pedroches and Guijuelo. As for white pigs, the PDOs provide a further guarantee to consumers in addition to a series of process parameters (different in each case) that are considerably stricter than the Iberian Standard.

Outer appearance

Having already considered where to buy it, the price and the type of ham that you want, one of the aspects that you can ‘control’ is the visual appearance. They say that hams are like melons and until you open them, you’re not sure how they are going to come out. And it’s true to a certain extent. Ham is a ‘living’ product, constantly evolving from the start of its process and in it, you can find small anomalies such as you might find in an apparently healthy apple. But beyond that, here are some things that we would recommend considering when choosing a ham.
The fat is a clear quality parameter in the ham. We should make it clear that it is not possible to produce a good quality product without fat. To check whether your piece has the right amount of fat, you can look at the tip and check that the fat is at least one centimetre thick (we specifically like it to have more). The fat gives the lean meat its flavour and helps keep it juicy, in addition to reducing the piece’s salty taste. On the other hand, we can check that it does not have any excessive deformities. If its natural shape is intact, it is more likely that the fat and muscle content of the piece is correct. However, a ‘deformed’ ham is not necessarily a bad ham. Once open, it might be difficult to tell the difference.
Another aspect to weigh up is the curing time. Whether it is in the form of a branding or ink on the crust, or on a label, the ham should display a MAPA seal showing the week and the year that salting began. The curing time will not determine the hardness or the consistency of the meat or even the flavour and fragrance that the piece has acquired.
We hope to have helped you choose your ham. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to make an enquiry and we will try and answer it as quickly as possible.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *