Country Hams and Quality

There's an article about country hams in the Charlotte Observer. It mentions that Iberico can cost $125/lb (for slices), while a country ham runs $3/lb - a factor of more than 40.

Everthing about that is backwards: Spain, a country you think of as having cheap labor, makes their cured products with more technology (and lower labor) than the producer in North Carolina. The Spanish stuff also tastes better and costs more than the American product.

The small amount of imported Iberico that I've had doesn't taste as good as what I had in Europe at Amsterdam's airport. If the imported stuff I tried is typical, the American/Spanish disparity is even more glaring; they trounce us with stuff that isn't even their best.

If one day America manages to produce cured pork products as good as Europe's best (perhaps even exporting them to Europe, like wine from California), I suspect it will be because of the efforts of a small and determined group - among them myself, Christoph Wiesner, Devin Knell, Keith Luce, Chris Curtis, Kylan Hoover, etc.