{"id":1980,"date":"2020-11-09T12:46:12","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T11:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/?p=1980"},"modified":"2021-03-03T13:07:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T12:07:02","slug":"ham-myths-female-ham-vs-male-ham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/en\/ham-myths-female-ham-vs-male-ham\/","title":{"rendered":"Ham myths: female ham vs. male ham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"jamon-de-hembra-vs-jamon-de-macho\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few weeks ago, we began this series of posts in the myths\nsurrounding ham. After talking about so-called pata negra<\/strong><\/a> hams, this week\nwe wish to clarify another of the fake\nideas that<\/strong>, occasionally, affect which ham we might buy<\/strong>: \u201cfemale ham\nis better\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Female ham but not from a sow<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Of course, a sow is a female pig. However, generally, the term sow’s ham<\/strong> refers to\nthe product obtained from adult females that were intended for breeding,\nslaughtered at a greater weight and age than other pigs. These are very large\nhams and less common on the market. These hams, cured in the houses where the\nmothers were slaughtered, gave fame to a product\nthat differed from uncastrated male hams as it did not have a musky scent<\/strong>\nlike the male pigs. Hams that are currently sold as female ham are not hams\nfrom a mother pig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the situation has changed recently. Male pigs\nintended for meat, are castrated surgically or immunologically before they\nreach sexual maturity and so before they produce androsterone<\/em>. This sexual pheromone is\nresponsible for an unpleasant scent and flavour of urine. Although not everyone\ncan perceive this scent, anyone who is sensitive to it will really notice it in\ntheir nose and mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, is female ham better than male ham?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The simple answer is no. In fact, castrated males not only no\nlonger give off this unpleasant scent, but they are also usually fattier hams<\/strong>.\nCastrated males are more voracious eaters and have a poorer conversion rate for\ngrain into lean meat than uncastrated males and females, so they accumulate a\ngreater fat covering. And now we know what it means to have a greater quantity of fat in the ham:\nbetter balance of salt in the mouth<\/strong> and juicier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor do we want to say here that castrated males are better than\nfemales. We always talk about suppositions\nthat are not mathematical<\/strong>, so we might also find very fatty female hams<\/strong> that\noffer the same advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, we can state that we are talking about hams with barely\nany organoleptic differences between them, that should not affect what you buy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, we began this series of posts in the myths surrounding ham. After talking about so-called pata negra hams, this week we wish to clarify another of the fake ideas that, occasionally, affect which ham we might buy: \u201cfemale ham is better\u201d. Female ham but not from a sow Of course, a sow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[313],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1982,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions\/1982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}