Dobleve

  Last weekend I took a course to learn how to cut jamon professionally.  If you’ve never tried jamon you are missing out, it’s worth a trip to Spain for just this.  

  Because we like jamon (and Milo really likes to be around when it’s cut because you can’t do it without dropping plenty of tasty bits on the floor) I had done some reading and asked friends here for advice, we typically have a leg in the house at all times, in the process of being cut.  What I learned last weekend was the difference between being able to get slices of meat from the ham leg (me prior to the course) and being able to cut it very well and the artistry that goes with that (hopefully me now).

  There are some photos of the class along with a little story, for some reason the non-spanish student doesn’t figure prominently in the marketing photos, but if you look closely you can see me in the background of some of them.

  The class was pretty evenly divided between professional cooks and amateur jamon enthusiasts, with a focus on how to do this at the professional level.  The course was entirely in spanish of course.  We learned detailed anatomy, cutting techniques, presentation and how to get that last platter of jamon from the leg.  One of my favorite exclamations heard during the class from the professor as he monitored our work was “your leg is dancing!”, meaning you aren’t holding the leg properly and it is moving as you cut it, thus meaning you can’t cut proper slices from it.

 We each cut an entire 9 kilo (20lb) ham leg into paper-thin slices (done right you can see through them) of ham over the course of the 12 hour class.  Professionals cut the same amount in 1 hour.  After class this left me with a mountain of ham slices – about 5 kilos worth, and no hope of eating it all before it went bad.  We used some for our Super Bowl party, and I decided I should give some to our neighbors.

  I went to the neighbor’s door sunday afternoon bearing a plate with about a pound of jamon slices on it and knocked.  Muffled from inside I heard one of my neighbors ask the other “who is it?” and the reply – “el extranjero” (the foreigner), prior to them coming to the door.  They graciously accepted the plate and an explanation of how I had just finished a ham cutting course and had more than I could possibly eat, but I suspect this has only increased our standing as the odd ones on the street.