- Address: Calle Mayor 7, 28012 Madrid
- Phone: +34 914 31 72 96
- Website: www.museodeljamon.com
A curious tourist should be fed not only spiritually, bypassing one cultural and historical landmark after another, but also bodily. And here it would be nice to remember the delicacies of Spanish national cuisine, one of which is the legendary jamon - a dried pork ham. And imagine, this overseas delicacy has even its own museum - the museum of the jamon in Madrid (Museo del Jamon). Really, worth a visit.
In translation into Russian, the jamon is the hind leg, although for many, a direct association with ham is stable. Gastronomically, reality is somewhere in between. The plot of the recipe is a ham, salted with sea salt and aged for about one and a half years in a ventilated coolness. In the end, we get the legendary jamon.
There are two main types of jamon: serrano from ordinary white pigs and an excellent Iberico from black pigs of the same breed. For an inexperienced tourist, the first major difference is the price. So, for comparison, one kilogram of simple serrano costs about € 10, and the elite Iberico is already € 140-150. This run-up of prices is explained by the fact that the black pigs are difficult to breed, they gain weight slowly, and even the stone oaks, whose acorns they eat, are not growing in Spain today, in fact. And between these species there are still a lot of different brands of jamon, the price of which depends on the breed and the age of the slaughter, the feed used, the time of drying meat, etc. The whole assortment is better at least once in life to see at the museum of the jamon.
The museum of the jamon in Madrid is something like a market-shop, where not one hundred hamons hang under the ceiling, the show-windows are bursting with the abundance of sausages and cheeses. All this is offered to you with home-made bread and beer or wine. There is also a café where tastings are held, and you can also order an optional lunch or dinner. The Spaniards themselves also often visit an appetizing museum, arranging heated discussions about the authenticity of the recipe.
Where to buy hamon in Madrid?
In fact, similar museums-places where they sell jamon in Madrid are somewhat:
- Paseo del Prado, 44 - the very first counter opened in the "Golden Triangle of Art" (Prado Museum, Queen Sofia Arts Center and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum ) in 1978 in the city center;
- Avenida de Córdoba, 7 y 9;
- Carrera de San Jerónimo, 6;
- Calle Mayor, 7;
- Plaza Mayor, 17th 18;
- Capitán Haya, 15;
- C / General Díaz Porlier, 8 (Mercado de Torrijos - Torrijos market, pavilion 43).
It's nice to realize that this is the only museum in the country where you can buy any exhibit and take it home, so if you are still undecided about what to bring back from Spain , feel free to go there. Sellers, they are guides, always tell in detail where this leg was running and what it ate until it hit the counter of the museum. This is the case when the knowledge of the Spanish language is very useful.
To gourmets on a note:
- thin cutting - a prerequisite when feeding a jamon to the table. In Spain there is even a contest for the ability to cut the thinnest and longest piece;
- on the site you can download a free coupon for tasting;
- the grade of the jamon can be determined independently by the color of the hoof: white or black.
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