El País, Gastronotas de Capel, «Iberian bacon must be vindicated».»

News published by José Carlos Capel, in El País, September 04, 2020

“The bacon measures the quality of Iberian hams, it synthesizes what the pigs have eaten. The greater the fluidity of the fat, the greater the proportion of acorns and the higher the oleic acid content. Color and melting point are two external signs,” he told me with a laugh. Pepe Simon during our tour of the farm La Algaba in the middle of Round. If there is one thing that strikes me about this hyperactive engineer and livestock farmer, manager of the signature family The Dehesa of the Monteross, founded by his mother, the economics professor Chelo Gámez, is the passion with which he extols the quality of the fatty tissues of his hams, oleic sumun of oleic, whose melting points are unusually low.

“Our Iberian are true athletes; move on steep terrain and in the open range they feed on grass and three types of acorns: holm oaks, cork oaks and gall oaks. The previous month, chestnuts are eaten in the Genal valley, a premontanera which gives them sweet nuances. Chestnuts and acorns, a unique pairing”.

The reality is that Simon and his mother focus their current concerns on a second project that is more romantic than economic: the recovery of an officially extinct indigenous breed, the golden blonde rondeño.

“This is a genetic treasure; feral mountain hogs, different from the other Iberian strains, which once roamed freely in the highlands of Malaga and Cadiz. Small animals, with short legs and sharp muzzles, slow growth and high fat content, whose hams require very long curing times and three times higher production costs. To top it off, they have a white hoof grayish, We are the only ones who breed them in the world. We are the only ones who breed them in the world, their production is minimal and the effort they force us to make is disproportionate”, he reiterated. Simon with a strong faith. I dealt with the causes of the disappearance of these animals back in the sixties or seventies in a recent article: Iberian hams rubio dorado.

What is certain is that Pepe Simon had summoned us to La Algaba for two reasons: to show us the mini-cabin of iberian products golden blond that roam freely in the mountains and perform under the oaks a vertical tasting of Iberian bacon. The experience was joined by the great chef Benito Gomez, owner of the bar Tragatá and the restaurant Bardal (2*), both in Round.

Bacon tasting? In fact, four consecutive vintages from 2015 to 2018, of bacon thinnings from hams iberian pigs of the torviscal breed that Simon had been cut into thin slices and carefully vacuum-packed and labeled. By mid-morning and with the heat of the saw, they began to melt inside the packages.

If you are a lover of bacon and oleic, you can see the full article here.

News published by José Carlos Capel, in El País, September 4, 2020.