The Hams of Spain (a footnote to the live blog from Salamanca)
In the 16th century, if you could transport it, whatever it was, from of one country and into another, there was no doubt that it could be consumed. There was free movement of goods and people, the age before planning and passports. Today, we brag about our free trade, our internationalism, our global outlook, but it is ridiculous. The world is more segmented by national autarkies now than it was 500 years ago.
My particular outrage today concerns the following height of absurdity.
It turns out the Spain has this highly special ham. Actually, there ought to be some other word than "ham" because it is like no ham I've ever had. It is made from something called a black-hoofed pig that is fed acorns exclusively and then the meat is prepared and cured for fully 3 years, and it sells for something like $400 for a leg of the stuff.
In Spain there are special holders for this leg that allow you to cut of super thin slices as you need them. The flavor and texture is indescribable. It is sweet and succulent and there aren't enough adjectives in the language to explain it.
Of course I was ready to sell my cow-hide shoes to raise the money to buy one of these hams. But then I had some vague memory that customs has a problem with bringing food in. Well, that's unfortunate of course but I figured that at least I won't have to throw out my clothes and stick a ham in my bag. I'll just order one when I get back to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
So I thought first I would google around for a good Spanish ham company. Oh there's one. But wait! There is no option for shipping to the U.S. I went to another company. Same problem. Again and again. What the heck is going on here.
Well, it turns out that you cannot import this ham to the U.S.. Maybe there is a dodgy smuggling company somewhere that makes it possible. Maybe the Medellin Cartel is taking up the cause. But I seem to lack contacts with this outfit. So I'm completely stuck as is every other American. (Here is one place that offers a substitute but you have to engage in some kind of deposit and it seems rather complicated, and one doesn't even end up with the right thing.)
Apparently it has something to do with the U.S. Agriculture bureaucracy. They don't think that this ham is prepared the right away and it might introduce something unhealthy into our system. And don't you just know that those bureaucrats in Washington are sitting around worrying about health and this is why they have to keep us from doing things like importing dangerous hams?
The U.S. government even publishes a guide to ham safety which I'm sure you check often.
This is preposterous. I'm willing to bet that there is some U.S. ham lobby or something behind this rule.
Can you believe this primitivism? In order to have this great food, one has to board an airplane and fly to Spain and book a hotel and go out to eat. Or you could buy a ham in Spain and camp there for a month, eating it bit by bit. In this age and in our times!
Actually, if you think about it, there is an inconsistency here. If the USDA is really so concerned about protecting me from Spanish hams, why does the government allow me to fly here and eat it? Should the U.S. just ban all travel to Spain for fear that some citizen somewhere might endanger his precious health by eating a ham? Why should it be legal for an American to eat ham in Spain but not the U.S.? And maybe too the U.S. should ban anyone from Spain from coming to the U.S. because perhaps the immigrant is a carrier of the ham disease and could infect the whole population.
There was a time when Kings and Princes and Queens would order explorers around the world to bring back spices, vegetables, and meats from all places. Now our rulers order us not to bring spices, vegetables, and meats from all places but rather to munch only on what can be produced on American soil. This is not progress. This is horrible, and it is a general trend. Look at the tariffs on Argentinian beef, French cheese, and Swiss chocolate?
We live in age of autarky of sorts, and we not even aware of it. Like the Soviet Union of old, the American government is trying to keep us all ignorant of the delights available around the world in order to make us more captive and obedient citizens.
Remember how the Russians began to rebel once technology revealed to them the prosperity available outside its borders and around the world? I swear to you that if every American could get one taste of the forbidden ham, they too might rebel and for the same reasons the Russians did. Or everyone might just be forced to flee to Spain the way people from East Germany would leave for the West.
Comments (34)
Will Ortel
They are starting to lift - or at least not enforce as closely - these restrictions. You still can't stick a leg of the stuff in your suitcase but if you live in a big city you can likely source some at your local overpriced grocery store.
You can't get the really, really good stuff...but you can get the stuff that's selling for about sixty euros over in Spain.
Published: October 24, 2009 11:15 AM
Artisan
All you said is true and confirmed here
Published: October 24, 2009 11:19 AM
Alvaro
Oh my God!! I live in a "third world" country and have been eating ham my whole life without reading the guide!
Published: October 24, 2009 11:36 AM
Jonathan Finegold Catalán
As I have family on both sides of the Atlantic, I commute between Madrid and San Diego fairly frequently. I was not aware on the ban of Spanish ham before, and one year I decided to bring a little bit with me. I was stopped by U.S. Customs and they searched my bags and took my ham. I am sure that the customs official ate it himself.
Jamón Ibérico is, hands down, the best ham in the world, and really one of Spain's best cultural "dishes" (if you can call it that).
But Jeffrey, there is good news. I was living in Spain at the time, so it wasn't very important to me, but the ban was lifted in December 2007. There is one approved exporter to the United States, and you are in the province where the headquarters is located. This is Embutidos y Jamones Fermín.
Published: October 24, 2009 11:44 AM
Gustavo
I'm a brazilian living in Spain since September, and yes, Jamón is like nothing else - unfortunately my mom won't know how does it taste unless she comes visit me (and she won't, 'cause flying from Brazil to Europe is friggin' expensive - government there regulates prices of a flight so there won't be dumping).
Unfortunately, it's the only good thing Spain produces, and I miss everything I used to eat in Brazil - specially the desserts. And, of course, I can't ask people there to mail me the ingredients I can't find in Seville so I could prep them myself: it's just forbidden.
Yeah, it seems I'll have to eat their lame desserts and eat their lame food - of course, with jamón, in order to have a liveable life. Blame the government for that.
Published: October 24, 2009 11:49 AM
Gustavo
At least God has made chocolate an international wonder.
Published: October 24, 2009 11:56 AM
Ira Katz
Jeff,
I agree with everything you wrote about Spanish hams. Another aspect of the hams are that they are hanging in almost all the bars and restaurants. On my first visit to Spain a few years ago I thought the hanging hams of Spain are like the proverbial canary in the mine for Europe. If they come down due to bureaucratic dictate from Brussels, because they are not safe (or sanitary), the great mosaic of European culture is doomed to boring uniformity. Certainly the boring character of a perfectly safe and sanitary existence has come to much of the US..
Published: October 24, 2009 12:00 PM
Jonathan Finegold Catalán
Ira Katz,
One thing you should be wary of is scams, though. Most ham sold is serrano, which is run of the mill ham. To anybody eating ham in Spain, if they tell you they have cheap Jamón Ibérico, it's not Jamón Ibérico (I know the El Museo del Jamón used to do this).
Published: October 24, 2009 12:09 PM
Walt D,
Jeffrey - try here http://www.jamon.com/shopiberico.html
I think Fermin USA is the official importer.
Jonathan - is this authentic?
Published: October 24, 2009 1:14 PM
Andrew_M_Garland
Marketing Orders for Fruits and Vegetables
"Federal marketing orders are producer-operated programs aimed at raising grower prices and incomes by regulating product marketing. Federal orders are also used for fluid milk, but they are administered differently than for fruits and vegetables."
The New Deal produced pervasive regulation of markets for everything. Restricting Spanish hams is bad. Marketing orders in the U.S. are worse. You can't grow and sell an orange without following the rules of a Federal bureaucracy and your local county tyranny.
Published: October 24, 2009 1:20 PM
Walt D.
Jeffrey -or here
http://www.laespanolameats.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=IBERICO
Published: October 24, 2009 1:28 PM
FDA
"If the USDA is really so concerned about protecting me from Spanish hams, why does the government allow me to fly here and eat it? Should the U.S. just ban all travel to Spain for fear that some citizen somewhere might endanger his precious health by eating a ham?"
Thanks for the good ideas, and please contact us with your name, address, and SS #, so we can add you to the no-fly list and prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate event you experienced.
Yours,
FDA
Published: October 24, 2009 1:36 PM
Artisan
Ok, next:
now let's talk about French raw milk cheese please. No kidding : even in France, big business that cares very much about the safety of its customers, lobbies for an interdiction of raw milk - just like it successfully did in Germany and even Switzerland.
Certainly there's thousands of Frenchmen dying every year of those mushroom poisoning... well at least they could be - if they ate the pata negra stuff too.
Wasn't it Bush that raised 300% tariffs on Roquefort as the last health care move of his presidency? Or was that just a war on drug thing?
Published: October 24, 2009 2:29 PM
Savannah Liston
I live in rural USA, and my family happens to like eating natural, organic food. There happens to be a local grocery store that supplies natural and organic food. For some time they carried very good raw cheese from Switzerland, but now it is illegal to get the raw cheese from Switzerland, so we have to go without. I trust the Swiss far more than any big US company when it comes to food, and I would much prefer having raw (gasp!) cheese from Switzerland than cheese from that US that has been homogenized, pasteurized, disinfected, or who know's what...but my government (who is just looking out for my well-being of course) won't let me.
Published: October 24, 2009 2:43 PM
Maharbbal
Dear sir,
I strongly disagree with you. The beast ham in the world is – no doubt about that – the Corsican Lonzu which has a number of advantages over the Spanish Jàmon:
i. it can be imported to the US,
ii. part of its price certainly goes directly to the fight against a colonialist state (i.e. the French government),
iii. it is significantly cheaper,
iv. the real one is made out of donkey, so your Jewish and Muslim friends can enjoy it,
v. it is much more exotic than Jàmon.
Enjoy your time in Spain.
Published: October 24, 2009 3:33 PM
Arend
Actually, the ham on the picture is not Pata Negra, b/c the 'pata' no es 'negra'. :)
Published: October 24, 2009 5:54 PM
Alfonso
They grow the same pork in southern Portugal (Alentejo). It is called Presunto de Porco Preto, I had it in the form of a grilled cutlet in a small hole in the wall restaurant. It was the most flavorful pork I have ever had. Sadly, I think these pigs are probably just as difficult to bring to the US.
Published: October 24, 2009 6:18 PM
SharmaK
This is no longer true. You can get Iberico Ham in the US. They've been doing it for a year [news report](http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=resources/lifestyle_community/food/restaurants&id=5886426).
Published: October 24, 2009 8:50 PM
newson
well, if it's going to be a pissing competition, the prosciutti of the parma and of friuli-venezia giulia areas are serious rivals to jamón ibérico (which is great, nonetheless).
italian prosciutti are exported to all parts of the world, as far as i'm aware.
artisan's right. the real tragedy isn't jamón, it's raw cheeses. the same government that subsidizes abortion on a massive scale is petrified by the small risk of miscarriage through listeria, and must assume tutelage of the idiot cheese-eater.
Published: October 24, 2009 10:51 PM
Joseph O.
Oh Jeffery:
Could this really be so appalling to you? Or surprise you? Of course there is a Ham lobby. How dare you temp to bring in a meat from a hog outside of the USA?
Ok maybe I shouldn't be so rough on you. You for some reason don't strike me as the farm boy type (no clue why that would be?). But I am from the region surrounding SPAM Town USA. How you found a Ham finer than the Hormel Spiced ham in a can is beyond disbelief...maybe this country bumpkin needs to take a trip to Spain.
USA is I believe Number 2 in hog production (short of some Asian monster I think) and if anybody thinks we still have a free market in the USA take a trip out to a farmer and have explain what would happen if he planted a bunch of acres...oh wait you just posted a daily on that subject...sugar cane vs. high fructose corn syrup anyone?
http://mises.org/daily/3759 (its crazier when you are actually taking government funds trust me)
Published: October 25, 2009 1:17 AM
Peter
Oh my God!! I live in a "third world" country and have been eating ham my whole life without reading the guide!
Surprising you're still alive, living that dangerously!
Published: October 25, 2009 4:11 AM
Current
There are similar silly regulations in the EU. More of them in fact.
You can't sell apples that are above or below a certain size. Things like carrots and cucumbers have to be straight. There are regulations about the colours certain vegetables are supposed to be. There are all sorts of bizarre regulations about winemaking that prevent one region from making wine in the style of another region.
Published: October 25, 2009 10:40 AM
Don S.
Can someone put a warning at the top of the article saying not to read the article or the comments when hungry?
Published: October 25, 2009 11:03 AM
Mark Thornton
It seems that your Spanish ham may have been the product of a long chain of opportunity cost considerations, but I think Cantillon must have been speaking of an early version of Black Forest Ham.
from Part 1, Chapter 3 "On Villages" of the Essai.........
If the lands only produce woods in sandy soils where there
is no grass for beasts, and if they are distant from towns and
rivers which makes the timber useless for consumption as one sees in many cases in Germany, there will be only so many houses and villages as are needed to gather acorns and feed pigs in season: but if the lands are altogether barren there will be neither villages nor inhabitants.
Published: October 25, 2009 1:14 PM
Bruce Koerber
http://classicalliberalismprotection.blogspot.com/
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Secession And Emigration Protect Liberties.
The two great protectors of classical liberalism societies are greatly diminished in these, the Dark Ages of economics! They are: Secession and Emigration!
Compounding the emigration problem is the lack of a universal auxiliary language. If everyone in the world learned their native tongue and one universal language adopted around the world as the universal auxiliary language then you or I could move to Spain, or China, or Brazil, let's say, and function normally.
This will be one of the very early transformations in human relationships once we leave the Dark Ages of economics and enter into the enlightened period of classical liberalism societies. .
Published: October 25, 2009 5:47 PM
fundamentalist
An American is trying to create a knock off of Iberian ham. Inc Magazine has an article on the guy at http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/john-scharffenberger-the-tastemaker.html. Here's the lead:
"John Scharffenberger, The Tastemaker.
John Scharffenberger is a crucial part of the gourmeting of America. He got his start making fine chocolate and now he plans to create an American version of Iberian ham."
Published: October 25, 2009 9:03 PM
Alicia Alvarez
I think that recreating Spanish ham in the US will not be the same :-(
There is a lot of factors that make Spanish ham so good, specially Guijuelo ham which is the one that Jeffrey tried. The provinces of Salamanca and the region of Extremadura have special weather conditions to cure the ham, like the province of Leon is the only place where you can taste the best cecina (a sort of ham made of veal) of the world, due to the same reasons.
There other regions in Spain that produce ham, but nothing like that "jamón de Guijuelo".
And forgive me, but there is no ham in the world that can be compared to the Spanish ham.
:-)
Published: October 26, 2009 3:49 AM
Helio
Alicia, the Guijuelo jamón is not the same as the Bellota one, is it? The Bellota, nevertheless, is fantastic.
Published: October 26, 2009 6:18 AM
Haymor
As far as I know, Guijuelo is a place in Spain, a small town. In the other hand "bellota" ham is referred to the feeding of the pigs independently of the place they are grown. You can found "bellota" ham in more places of spain. However "guijuelo" ham, is a particular case of a "bellota" ham because apart from being "bellota" it is grown in special land and weather conditions.
Published: October 26, 2009 7:45 AM
Walt D.
Fed + Acorn + Pork + Black + Pigs = Jamon Bellota?
Shameless conspiracy codewords/keywords to drive traffic to this site? :-)
Published: October 26, 2009 12:22 PM
Larry N. Martin
Talking about pork barrel politics--this is the blackest yet (negra)! But goes hand-in-hand with other regulations intended to 'protect' producers at the expense of consumers.
Published: October 26, 2009 3:27 PM
Lorenzo B.
Even the Italian Culatello ham cannot be imported in US. And Culatello is the Ferrari of hams... :P
Published: October 27, 2009 4:53 PM
Manolo I
From Valencia specifically the region of Utiel-Requena you have an USDA approved exporter of jamon serrano Jamones Redondo Iglesias.
Enjoy! Salud!
Published: October 28, 2009 3:16 AM
Rob
The restriction was never to protect the consumer from disease. The restriction on ham imports to the US was intended to prevent spread of hoof-and-mouth disease, which was eradicated in the US but still present in the Spanish industry. Now, this is just as much b.s. as most other phytosanitary import restrictions (see restrictions on import of Mexican avacados), but they never pretended that the meat was harmful to humans.
Published: November 8, 2009 4:54 AM