Fri 14 Jul 2006
The saga, the mystery, that conspiracy behind the conspiracy continues. Finally, Spanish jamón is available in the US. This means more jamón legs, but still no one has yet to explain where the pigs are coming from. For background information, please read Jamón: What nobody wants to admit and Jamón part II: an alternative version. Does this mean more clandestine pig hospitals? More genetic engineering of mutant pigs capable of regenerating their legs? Will Dustin Hoffman be starring in the lead role of the sci-fi thriller?
July 14th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I have many great food related stories from the two years i spent walking around Southern Spain. All of them are related to extremely loving and caring Elderly Widows and the food they prepared for us. Here is one for today: In Malaga an Elderly woman would invite us over to eat periodically… she was really sweat and loved to tell us stories about her very interesting life. One time she invited us over and prepared sandwiches (bocadillos) for us. And, of course, this woman’s love for us was based on how much of her food we ate… so i usually tried to eat the whole plate and ask for seconds.
However, these sandwichs were footlong sandwichs on French Bread (or probably from Don Pan). And inside of the sandwich was numerous pieces of Chorizo and tons of butter. I am not a fan of Chorizo, let alone a Chorizo filled sandwich. So i began to feed the cat when the woman was not looking… the cat started off begging and begging for more, until the cat finally got full and wouldn’t come back. I was stuck w/ eating the rest of the sandwich. A
Anyway
July 16th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
I prefer the old ladies who would get so excited about you coming over the following week and would immediately prepare the food. The food would sit on the table for a week until you got there. Nothing like a mayo-filled hard-boiled egg that has been sitting on the table in the open for one week. Classic!
July 17th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
yeah, i remember that woman (very nice), her name was Pilar and she lived in Cadiz. She really would do that… one time there were spider webs in our glasses. And i never touched those eggs and she didn’t have cat, but she did have a window.
October 8th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
[…] A few months ago in an attempt to solve the mystery behind why there are so many legs of ham everywhere in Spain and yet there are so few visible pigs, I revealed what may be a massive Jamón Conspiracy (see also, Parts II and III). And Last night while driving around in circles looking for parking with my friends Cobra and Berga, I discovered that there just might be a fourth explanation. Everytime I go into a bar or a supermarket, and I see severed, cured pig legs, I start doing the math. For every 4 legs (two paletillas and two jamones), you are missing one big pig. And as Cobra, Berga, and I were driving around, we kept passing small bars that were packed like sardines with legs of ham hanging everywhere. Then, it finally occurred to me why there were so many pig legs and yet no pigs in sight. If they didn’t cut off the legs and just left the entire pig, then there wouldn’t be any room in these tiny bars for all of the customers. Of course, that’s why they cut the legs off. They desperately need the space. It’s a resource issue. Just imagine going into a bar for tapas and it is full of huge Iberian pigs hanging from the ceiling. The only solution they could reasonably come up with was to discard everything but the front and hind legs. Sacrifice the bodies for greater leg room. Nevertheless, this doesn’t explain where the rest of the pig is hiding. […]