Food
Five Questions to Ask About Jamón Ibérico
The market for your fancy hams just got more crowded.
Like Kobe beef and halibut sushi, much of what you see labeled as jamón ibérico is not what you think it is. Though the narrative of acorn-fattened pigs roaming the woodlands of western Spain is popular, it appears to be a misleading one: Most ibérico pigs spend their short, unremarkable lives slopping up provender on factory farms.
Since the price and quality of jamón ibérico vary widely—high-end examples can fetch more than $200 a pound—Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture rolled out designations a few years back that minimize the guesswork. White, green, and red tags denote pork that’s typically mixed-breed and frequently fed with grain, not acorns. Purebred, acorn-fed ibérico pigs are tagged with black labels.