The Surprising Life of Ham

There was a minor feria (expo) in Plaza Mayor while we were in Madrid.  For Ham.

Big ol' legs of pigs.  Just hanging around.  

Then sliced for folks that had paid 7 Euro for a plate of the stuff.

I never liked the stuff when I lived in Spain.  It was rubbery and just not my kind of ham.  I'm a a jamón de york kind of girl, if forced to choose between the two options.  But really, I don't much like jamón de york either.  It's too over processed and jamón serrano is not processed enough.  So I prefer the ham that's in between.  The kind you find under glass in the deli at Safeway.

I've gotten used to seeing lets of ham hanging around, but it's still a little disconcerting to see so MUCH of it in one place.

I couldn't get my sister to try jamón serrano at all while we were in Spain.  Probably because every time I spoke of it I was crawling with heebie-jeebies.  It's hard to hide heebie-jeebies.  And I feel bad, because she may have actually liked it.

That same day I learned something about ham that came as quite a surprise to me:  Spaniards love ham because of the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody has expected since then, by the way).  In Spain's effort to ensure recently converted Moors and Jews to the Catholic faith had left behind their old ways, they encouraged the consumption of ham - ham being prohibited both by the law of Moses and the Quran.  

I'm not exactly sure why I find this so surprising.  I just do.