Spain food & drink

Iberian ham, known in Spain as pata negra, or black foot, is the finest Spanish ham, with an intense, nutty flavour and generous marbling, fattier than the more commonly known Serrano ham. Aficionados put it on a par with Kobe beef, Beluga caviar and white truffles.
 
“It is a very nurtured product. The better you feed your animal, the better the meat is going to be,” says Lucy Arkwright of our partner Posada San Marco. The Andalucia rural retreats that she runs for us with husband Angel introduce you to the Sierra de Aracena region and its cuisine, as well as several producers among their neighbours.

They‘ll guide you around a farm to explain the seasonality of pig-farming. Montanera is the fattening period, the months when the pigs roam free range through the pastures gorging themselves silly on acorns that fall from around September. Once their weight tops 180kg, usually by late January, the pigs are slaughtered, in a ritual known as la matanza. Afterwards, the meat is salted and hung to air cure.

“The flavour, the consistency, and the fact that it's very slow to produce is what makes Iberian ham so expensive,” says Lucy. You're talking at least four years from the time the piglets are born until you can actually carve a slice of ham.

“Everyone here buys a leg around Christmas,” says Lucy. They bring them out at fiestas. In our area the fiesta is called the romeria – you go out to a hermitage and you're honouring the saint or the Madonna. Everybody's taking food and drink and lots of people will have a ham stand. And they'll just start carving away.”

The hind legs of the pig are the jamons, the fore legs the paletas. The paletas are smaller and not so meaty, making them a cheaper cut. But while it’s the jamons that are prized above all, none of the pig is wasted. Or as Lucy puts it, “We eat everything but the oink.” Homemade pork pate is a regular feature on the breakfast table. And large, cured sausages called cana de lomo fill the fridges in the Aracena butcher shop Lucy visits with her guests, while the jamons hang from the rafters, graded and priced according to the pig’s breeding.

You can also enjoy a masterclass in slicing a ham, along with generous portions of charcuterie to taste, accompanied by a Fino sherry from Jerez and a Manzanilla from Cadiz, and a sherry that Lucy and Angel mature themselves. Experiences like this are the epitome of the Slow Food philosophy that began in Italy in the 1980s and has since spread worldwide.

Elsewhere in Andalucia, our holidays combine cookery lessons with learning the Spanish language in Granada. Mornings are given over to grammar and vocabulary, afternoons to eating and drinking. Professional chefs lead kitchen-based workshops that focus on Moorish elements of Andalusian cuisine, so think fried anchovies served with lemon and garlic aioli, saffron-infused paella, and delicious deep-fried fritters, flavoured with hints of orange, lemon and aniseed.

Guadalajara, just north of Madrid, is the setting for some of our most enticing Spain food holidays. Join a small group for tapas picnic lunches in the hills by the River Tagus, wine tasting workshops and cookery classes led by an inhouse chef, while staying in a quiet medieval village.

In season (spring and early summer) you can visit an apiary to learn how the local bees are cared for, and taste some lip-smacking good organic honey with aromas from the surrounding lavender fields. Our holiday partners open up their land on request for local shepherds to graze their sheep –open grazing leads to healthier flocks and biodiversity, as well as reducing the risk of fire in the dry summer months. It also means that there is a ready supply of Manchego cheese and organic lamb whenever the menu calls for it.