I have been living in Spain now for almost 6 years, and I have always found Spaniard’s blind devotion to jamón (cured pigs legs) to be rather curious. You often witness Spaniards declare “no hay nada como un jamón” (there is nothing like jamón). Every time I hear someone make such a sweeping statement of idolotry for the flesh of a pig’s leg, I think these people have most likely had one slice too many (hence, the extremely low birth rate in Spain). I can easily think of a dozen things in life that are more valuable to me than deli meat or food in general. And over time, I have even grown to abhore dried pork legs. Having said this, I also must admit that for the past 6 months I have actually begun having my first cravings for jamón.
But my personal relationship to jamón is not at issue in this post. Rather this post explores what I suspect to be an unknown conspiracy behind the Spanish delicacy. I have brought it up on numerous occassions in the past few days at work, and no one (with the sole exception of Martha who happens to be from Colombia, not Spain) seems to be concerned . That in and of itself concerns me. Why doesn’t anyone want to question the obvious? What are they trying to hide? Please permit me to explain . . .
Grave Error 