To Alájar in Andalusia: Sierra de Aracena Iberian Pork Experience Part 1

Into Andalusia and the Heartland of the Iberian Black Pig

Faro to Alájar

For the last three years our first act after arriving in the Algarve has been to leave it, this year we took that idea one stage further and left Portugal entirely.

Spain

Andalusia

Alájar, 210 km from Faro in the Andalusian Sierra de Aracena, was an easy 2½ hour drive, first east along the Portuguese auto-estrada to the Guadiana bridge then along the Spanish autopista on the other side. Both were free running and (at least by M6 standards) relatively empty.

The bridge across the Guadiana between Portugal and Spain (photographed from Castro Marim, October 2015)

Turning north just beyond Huelva took us onto the similarly uncluttered N435 which for 80km climbed gently from the coastal plain to where green hills basked in warm autumn sunshine.

Alájar

Alájar and the green Sierra de Aracena in Autumn sunshine

Alájar

A minor road took us the few kilometers to the entrance to Alájar. So far, so simple. I had expected finding the Posada de San Marcos in a village of 700 inhabitants to be equally easy, but not so; the signposting was intermittent, the roads were maze-like, some were narrow, the rest were narrower and all were lined with whitewashed buildings - to the untutored eye every street looked the same. One narrow, twisting downhill alley I did not fancy reversing back up, came to a pinch point. We folded in the wing-mirrors of our Fiat Panda and inched forward, grateful for the guidance of a local who suddenly appeared from nowhere like a guardian angel. I had considered booking a larger car this year - more comfortable for the long drive, I thought. I am so glad I didn’t.

One of Alájar's wider streets

Finding a road wide enough to park in, we decided to search on foot, only to find we were almost outside our destination.

Lynne outside the Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

We were warmly welcomed by our host Ángel – we would meet hostess Lucy tomorrow - who succinctly explained the streets of Alájar, ‘the Romans or the Arabs of whoever built these roads did not think about cars.’

Alájar is not just a village of narrow roads. Life was hard here during the Franco years (1936-75); Andalusia had little love for the Generalisimo and was repaid with 55,000 semi-judicial killings in the late 1930s followed by years of repression. The villages of the Sierra Aracena were isolated, the roads to Huelva and Seville were poor and development minimal.

There is, though, a silver lining; because of earlier neglect Alájar is unspoilt, a ‘heritage village’ nestling in the green hills. It looks as though nothing has changed for decades, perhaps centuries; most buildings still have a ring in the wall where you can hitch your horse or donkey, but…

Hitching ring on an Alájar wall

…unspoilt does not mean unchanged. This is, after all 21st century Europe; these houses have hitching rings for horses, broadband for computers and every convenience in between. Alájar is no longer neglected, the houses are freshly whitewashed, the roads neatly cobbled, there is a public swimming pool and a newish school for students up to 13, their older siblings are bussed 10km to the small town of Aracena.

A quiet corner, Alájar

The Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

From outside the 19th century Posada de San Marcos looks an ordinary village house - except for the sign over the door - but as we would learn, unassuming doors in Alájar can conceal some surprising contents.

The rear of the Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

Reception and three guest rooms are on the ground floor, downstairs the breakfast room (and restaurant in inclement weather) occupies the old bodega and there are three more guest rooms. The lower ground floor exits to the garden, pool and al fresco restaurant.

Garden and swimming pool, Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

Ham and Sherry at the Posada de San Marcos

Vegetarians look away now. Most of the rest of this post is about ham. If you would rather read about fine vegetarian cuisine, try one of my Gujarat posts.

We had come to Alájar for an 'Iberian Pig Experience' and as soon as we were settled in and freshened up we were down in the bodega for a ham carving and sherry tasting. The Iberian Black Pig, a cross between the domestic pigs introduced by the Phoenicians and the local wild boar, lives the porcine equivalent of the life of Reilly rootling around in the sparse forests of cork and holm oak that cover this part of Spain and much of the Alentejo in Portugal. In the second autumn of their lives they fatten themselves on the acorns carpeting the forest floor after which they are, as Ángel put it, 'sacrificed' to produce the finest pork and ham known to humanity. We first encountered Iberian Black Pork in Évora in the Alentejo in 2016 and immediately realized we were eating something special, so when Responsible Travel told us of a Pig Encounter of the Third Kind in Alájar, we signed up immediately.

As a prelude to the ham Ángel cut slices of lomo and morcón. Lomo is a cured cylinder of loin. Common English usage has rather lowered the loins from where they started, but pig butchery clings to an earlier definition. The loin is the muscle along the ridge of the backbone and in Iberian pigs, who spend they lives clambering up and down their hilly forest homes the loin, like the ham, is particularly well developed. The flavour is subtle, complex and utterly delicious. Morcón is a chorizo made from the loin off-cuts marinaded in paprika, garlic, salt and other spices. Lynne appreciated this, too, but I found something in the spicing dried out my mouth in a way I might have found alarming had I not had a glass of sherry to fall back on.

Lomo (nearer the camera) and morcón from the Iberian Black Pig

Jerez wines are produced in and around the city of that name near the Andalusian coast. 'Sherry' is an anglicisation of Jerez and means 'Jerez wine'.

The UK has a long and not always glorious history of sherry drinking, most of it medium sweet Amontillado, the traditional tipple of maiden aunts and long-suffering vicars - and if that did not ruin the reverend's Christmas there was always the real sweeties like Harvey's Bristol Cream (my late mother-in-law's favourite). Because she liked it, she assumed every discerning drinker craved it and often gave us a bottle at Christmas. It is fine, if you like that sort of thing, but we always passed it on to the church bazaar as a raffle prize.

Dry Fino was regarded as the sophisticated drinkers' sherry. As a rule of thumb, the sweeter the sherry the darker the hue so Croft Original, the colour of Fino with the stickiness of cream sherry, was created in 1966 for those who wished to look sophisticated but weren't.

Sometimes I think I am Britain’s last Fino sherry drinker, but that must be an illusion, it remains readily available in every supermarket. The sherry drinkers of Andalusia appreciate a good Fino and Ángel poured us an excellent example, a wine with the virtue of freshness, a quality that can be lost by loitering on a supermarket shelf. Its elegant flavour lingered delightfully - and dealt admirably with my dry mouth.

Carving ham is a craft and Ángel has been known to travel as far as the Basque country to demonstrate his skills. For an artisan, having the right tools is essential. First there were the knives, one large and broad bladed to deal with the skin, one small, pointed and wickedly sharp to work round the bones and one long and flexible to cut the slices, there were tweezers to pick up the cut ham and a steel so the knives could be sharpened every time they were used. And then there was the jamonero, the stand that held the afternoon’s most important guest, the ham itself.

The knives are ready, the ham sits in the jamonero, all is ready
Ángel makes a final point before starting to carve.

It was time for another sherry. Manzanilla is a Fino made in Sanlúcar de Barrameda 10km from Jerez. Grown right on the coast, Manzanilla ‘is blessed with a slightly salty tang, which is held to come from the sea’ (World Wine Atlas). I had previously regarded it as a way of paying a little more for an ordinary Fino, but I had never tasted them side by side before. Yes, it was salty, light, fragrant, bone-dry and lovely.

Jamon Iberico ready for carving, Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

As we sipped Ángel cut the ham, a shoulder, smaller than the rear legs which can be up to 8Kg, but of the same quality. Each slice was wafer thin and he always started where the previous slice ended.

Ángel slices the jam

The slices were red, glistening and almost transparent. Chocolate has the unusual quality of being a solid at room temperature, but liquid at body temperature, i.e it literally melts in your mouth - so too the fat of Jamón Iberico. Ángel suggested we held a slice in the mouth, pressed gently upwards with the tongue and waited. It was not a long wait, as the fat melts the mouth is filled with flavour, the essence of all good things porky. Such ham is necessarily expensive, a good quality 7.5Kg jamón on the bone can cost €500 locally, close to double that in the export market. But unless you own a restaurant you would not want a 7.5Kg ham; a 100g pre-sliced pack costs £20+. Fortunately, it is very rich, and so very full of flavour, you don’t need much.

Jamón Iberico, ready for tasting

The last sherry was a Manzanilla aged by Ángel himself. The precious liquid trickled out of his little barrel, a tad darker than it once had been and quite different on the palate. Richer and more complex than the young wine, it was reminiscent of Palo Cortado – my favourite type of sherry - though technically it is different. A fine end to the tasting.

Curing a ham takes three years and even after they have been started, they keep well and do not need refrigeration, merely covering with a cloth and placing somewhere cool and dry. Before putting his ham away Ángel carved some fat from the outside and packed it over the cut surface to keep it moist and fresh.

Dinner at the Posada de San Marcos, Alájar

Dinner, Ángel told us would be at outside at 7.30; to us a perfectly reasonable time for dinner, for most Spaniards 3 hours too early. ‘The temperature drops sharply when the sun goes down,’ Ángel explained, ‘so if you want to eat outside…..’ He could have added that as all six rooms were occupied by north Europeans it made sense to eat at north European times.

The dinner had been prepared by Ángel’s wife Lucy, the other half of the San Marcos team. Lucy may have started life in Bolton, but she is very much an adopted Andalusian and swaps back and forth between English and Spanish with the same dexterity that Ángel swaps between Spanish and English.

A salad of lettuce, roasted peppers and shards of an impressive local goat’s cheese was followed by Iberian Pork cheeks in a chocolate sauce and a home-made cheese cake. All was washed down with the house red, a (fairly) local organic tempranillo, a juicy lightweight perfect for gulping rather than sipping.

Iberian pork cheeks in chocolate sauce with rice and broccoli 

It was an excellent meal. We have enjoyed pigs’ cheeks in Portugal (in Mértola and Beja) stewed in red wine but the choclate sauce was a new idea. I had expected it to resemble a Mexican mole, but although it was thick and glossy there was no Mexican spicing. In a mole the sauce is more important than the meat (seeOaxaca, Cooking a Mole) but here the meat remained the centrepiece – and so it should with pork of this quality. It was hardly Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, but no chocolate can be as bitter as Mexican chocolate and there was a sweetness to the sauce I could have done without – but no doubt it pleased others.

As we had been up since 03.45, an early night seemed appropriate, before more porky delights tomorrow.

Iberian Pork

Part 1: Alájar in the Sierra Aracena

Part 2: Pigs, Ham and Tapas
Part 3: Secaderos, Pork Butchers and Cooking Dinner