Andalusia Gastronomy Route: Pork

The Iberian pig is a dark-skinned breed from this peninsula. In Andalusia the herds that count sit in the Sierra de Aracena and the Pedroches valley. In autumn they eat fallen acorns — bellota. That fat is why the cured meat feels silky. The same breed raised on feed costs less and eats drier. The names with legal protection here are Jabugo ham in Huelva and Los Pedroches ham in Cordoba. Guijuelo is a Castilian PDO. It is not an Andalusian town.

• Iberian ham (jamon iberico) — the cured hind leg. Months in a cellar. Sliced paper-thin.
• Iberian shoulder (paleta) — the front leg. Smaller, usually cheaper, similar flavour.
• Iberian loin (lomo iberico) — the cured eye of the loin, often in a paprika casing.
• Iberian chorizo — a firm cured sausage of the same meat, paprika and garlic. Some of it is smoked. Not all of it is.

Secreto is a well-marbled sheet from the shoulder, grilled hard and fast. Pluma means “feather”: a smaller, pointed piece next to the loin, also grilled. Presa is a thicker shoulder steak. None of these is ham. They are fresh meat, cooked when you order them.

You will see roast suckling pig now and then. It is not Andalusia’s signature dish the way it is in Segovia. Pork tenderloin with whisky is just a restaurant plate.

Lomo en manteca is how the mountains kept pork before fridges. Thick pieces of loin sit overnight in garlic, oregano, thyme, bay, vinegar and sometimes wine or cumin. Then they cook slowly in melted pork lard until tender and go into a pot, covered with that fat. When the lard sets, the slices keep. You eat them cold on toast or a soft roll — a mollete — or warmed in their own fat. In the Montes de Malaga people still call it lomo de los Montes.

Zurrapa is the good bit at the bottom of the same pot: shreds of pork in the seasoned lard, spread on bread.

• White — garlic, herbs and lard. No paprika. The fat stays pale.
• Paprika — sweet paprika in the marinade, the lard, or both. The fat turns brick-red. On labels this is manteca colorada.

Ronda, the Guadalhorce and the Montes de Malaga still make both. A sealed pot is easier to carry than a whole ham. Keep it cool.

A venta was never meant to be a pretty restaurant. It was a stop on the road when a day’s travel was measured in leagues and mule trains. Muleteers, coach passengers and anyone moving oil, salt or livestock needed a bed, a hot plate and a yard for the animals. Towns were too far apart. The venta sat by the track, often alone.

Sixteenth- and eighteenth-century road books already list them on the old Seville–Malaga run — Venta de las Yeguas, Venta de Cartama, Venta de Linares — one after another, with the distance in leagues. Some of those names are still on a sign. The lodging and the stables have gone. The kitchen stayed, and the wide yard became a car park. That is why a venta still suits a hired car: you eat loin in lard and zurrapa without threading a white village looking for a space.

You find them through the Montes de Malaga and on the roads toward Ronda, Grazalema, Aracena and the Pedroches. The classic strip is the A-7000, the old Colmenar road out of Malaga. Sunday lunch fills up. A weekday midday usually does not.

This is the plate the ventas on the Montes de Malaga were built around. It is not a delicate tasting menu. It is a heap: loin in paprika lard, fried potatoes, a fried egg, chorizo, fried green peppers, and usually morcilla. Some houses add migas — fried breadcrumbs — and call the bigger version plato a lo bestia.

The story attached to it is the 1930s muleteers who crossed these hills with goods on donkeys and stopped at the ventas for a meal that would last the afternoon. Malaga families still drive up the same road on a winter Sunday and order the same plate. It is meant to be cheap and heavy. Bring an appetite.

Pork is the backbone. Game is what the same ventas put on when the weather turns. Wild boar (jabali) usually comes as a stew in sauce — sometimes with almonds. Venison (venado) is another stew or a sauce plate. Neither is Iberian ham. They are hill meat, slow-cooked, served with chips or potatoes, and they belong on this drive even though they never saw a cellar in Jabugo.

Kid (chivo or choto) and rabbit turn up on the same boards. If you only order one thing, make it the plato de los Montes. If you have room for a second, that is the boar.

Aracena and Jabugo (Huelva) — the ham towns. Cellars, shops that cut to order, bars with a ham stand on the counter. Pluma and secreto on the grill at lunch. Come here if ham is why you left the coast.

Los Pedroches (Cordoba) — the other Andalusian Iberian ham with a PDO. Same oak woods as the sheep cheese from that valley.

Ronda and the Montes de Malaga — loin in lard, zurrapa, the plato de los Montes, and Ronda’s own morcilla and chorizo. Ventas on the A-7000 and the Ronda roads have the parking. Town: Ronda.

Grazalema — mountain pork: chorizo cooked in a small clay dish until it flames (chorizo al infierno), and blood sausage stewed in a pot (morcilla en caldera). Village: Sierra de Grazalema.

Trevelez, high in the Alpujarra of Granada, hangs white-pig ham in cold air. Paler and leaner than Jabugo, with its own mountain PDO. Do not expect acorn-fed Iberian.

Chorizo — minced pork, paprika and garlic, fresh to fry or cured to slice. In Grazalema you will see it cooked in a small clay dish until the fat catches (chorizo al infierno). In the Montes it is fried and dropped onto the plato de los Montes. The Serrania de Ronda — Montejaque and Benaojan among others — still makes it for the shop counter.

Morcilla de Ronda is the local blood sausage: pig’s blood, lard and onion, seasoned with paprika, oregano, cumin and garlic. It does not take rice, so it stays softer and more heavily spiced than the rice morcillas you meet further north. You can spread a slice on bread or fry it. It is the one that lands on the mountain plate beside the chorizo.

Salchichon is a milder cured sausage, less paprika. Sobrasada is a soft paprika paste from the Balearic Islands. Shops here sell it. It is not Andalusian. Fabada is an Asturian bean stew. Skip both if you are following this page.

A ham shop or a cured-meat counter will cut what you point at. Ask where it is from — Jabugo, Pedroches, Trevelez — and whether the pig ate acorns or feed. Jars of loin in lard and zurrapa sit on the same counter. Vacuum packs and sealed pots go in a suitcase. A whole leg only makes sense if you will finish it. A few hundred grams of shoulder is enough to try.

Supermarkets sell pre-sliced packs. Some are what they say they are. Many are not what you would buy in an Aracena cellar.