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Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

theguardian.com

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Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#51

Post by Cthulhu_ »

oblio wrote: post #27

This is actually good - we want China as integrated in the world economy as possible and we definitely want them to spend and open up to outside influences, including culinary. The world (and even China itself) doesn't need another Qing period.

It's nice to see China starting to import more - I got the impression for a long time that China was largely an export country (like a lot of electronics and such are made there). Should look up some figures before continuing to make such assumptions though.

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China says China's the #1 exporter and #2 importer of goods in the world, so, never mind :p

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#52

Post by the_gipsy »

mc32 wrote: post #4

The salient part was that it takes five acres per swine. They only have two hinds each... And they can only raise them in two areas of Spain. Seems production is pretty constrained by resources (in this case land with oak trees). That combined with 48-mo curing makes it hard to scale up. And we used to complain about almond production consuming too many resources (water) per output...

Well surface is not a big problem in Spain. Population density is relatively low.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#53

Post by wklauss »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #47

This is a good thing for the Spanish economy at least - they can charge higher prices, increase production, export more, etc. Some new jobs, probably not that much, but hey. They'd rely less on European subsidies (iirc Spain received a lot of agricultural subsidies - mind you last time I heard this was like ten years ago, idk if that's still up to date)

> increase production

Maybe, but it's a risky bet.

It takes years to cure a leg of good jamón ibérico and China is buying more today, but also investing in curing its own using the same methods and pig breeds.

Same goes for the US. They now have serrano ham in Texas and Virginia, produced with the same breed of pigs used in Spain for ibérico. Only a matter of time before they start selling jamón "ibérico" made in the US.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#54

Post by virgilp »

dazc wrote: post #44
EugeneOZ wrote: post #34

I live in Spain - a lot of jamon still in shops, prices are the same. Glad to see people of China love it, but there is no shortage of jamon, definitely.

But not all jamon is the same , apparently. Not, alas, to my typical Northern English palette though.

No, it's not. You're going to find it very hard to get Jamón Ibérico de Bellota outside Spain - from what I saw, they mostly export the jamón serrano. I'm pretty sure you can make the difference between the two - though, to be completely honest, it's not THAT big and I'm not sure it's worth the price difference.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#55

Post by Graham24 »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #21

Worth every penny -Spanish/Portuguese Iberico ham is sensational, melts in your mouth whilst bursting with flavour. As good as the best: Japanese Tuna Sashimi, Scottish grass fed Rib Eye steak, Iclandic Cod, US CheeseBurger, Bordeaux Wine, Thai Dom Yum Goong, Indian Tandori Chicken, Chineese Peeking Duck, Berlin Curryworst, Portuguese Custard Tart, Italian Margarita Pizza, French Butter Croissants or even Mcdonald’s…

and Stilton, and a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and a Gregg's sausage roll.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#56

Post by wklauss »

mc32 wrote: post #4

The salient part was that it takes five acres per swine. They only have two hinds each... And they can only raise them in two areas of Spain. Seems production is pretty constrained by resources (in this case land with oak trees). That combined with 48-mo curing makes it hard to scale up. And we used to complain about almond production consuming too many resources (water) per output...

It's only a matter of time before you start seeing ham cured in the same fashion but produced in other countries. US is now starting to have local production in Virginia and Texas (it takes between 2 and 3 years for a good leg of jamón to cure properly) and China is doing the same.

Spain might try to protect the trademark of "jamón ibérico" the same way that France protects Champagne but in the end, you'll be able to buy good jamón produced elsewhere the same way you can buy a good bottle of sparkling wine from Italy, Spain or California. There are a lot of acorn fields in the US, China and Korea so plenty of room for pigs to eat.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#57

Post by pjc50 »

angarg12 wrote: post #35

We spaniards are just absolutely terrible at marketing. Every time that I see how italians have managed to convince the world to consume their produces, I feel ashamed. And when we finally manage to get recognition, we can't meet the demand because we are not set up to deal with international demand. I hope this trend continues and we find new, healthier ways to expand our economy.

I suspect a lot of that success for Italy comes from exporting Italians - and then re-exporting Italian food via New York and Chicago, the homes of pizza.

For whatever reason there don't seem to have been nearly so many Iberian-Spanish immigrants, possibly they went to South America instead. Which has also been quite successful at exporting Spanish-language food..

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#58

Post by oblio »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #51
oblio wrote: post #27

This is actually good - we want China as integrated in the world economy as possible and we definitely want them to spend and open up to outside influences, including culinary. The world (and even China itself) doesn't need another Qing period.

It's nice to see China starting to import more - I got the impression for a long time that China was largely an export country (like a lot of electronics and such are made there). Should look up some figures before continuing to make such assumptions though. edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China says China's the #1 exporter and #2 importer of goods in the world, so, never mind :p

It depends also what kind of goods they're importing. I'm far from an economic expert but importing processed goods probably creates stronger economic, social and political ties than importing raw goods.

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#59

Post by gadders »

Graham24 wrote: post #55
garyclarke27 wrote: post #21

Worth every penny -Spanish/Portuguese Iberico ham is sensational, melts in your mouth whilst bursting with flavour. As good as the best: Japanese Tuna Sashimi, Scottish grass fed Rib Eye steak, Iclandic Cod, US CheeseBurger, Bordeaux Wine, Thai Dom Yum Goong, Indian Tandori Chicken, Chineese Peeking Duck, Berlin Curryworst, Portuguese Custard Tart, Italian Margarita Pizza, French Butter Croissants or even Mcdonald’s…

and Stilton, and a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and a Gregg's sausage roll.

One of those things is not like the others ;-)

Re: Spaniards face ham shortage as Chinese market gets taste for jamón ibérico

#60

Post by dagw »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #21

Worth every penny -Spanish/Portuguese Iberico ham is sensational, melts in your mouth whilst bursting with flavour. As good as the best: Japanese Tuna Sashimi, Scottish grass fed Rib Eye steak, Iclandic Cod, US CheeseBurger, Bordeaux Wine, Thai Dom Yum Goong, Indian Tandori Chicken, Chineese Peeking Duck, Berlin Curryworst, Portuguese Custard Tart, Italian Margarita Pizza, French Butter Croissants or even Mcdonald’s…

Worth every penny

Yes and no. Plenty of "good enough" Spanish/Portuguese Iberico ham is definitely worth it. The super high end stuff costing ~€100/kg that this article seems to largely be about I probably wouldn't consider "worth every penny" and I'd probably rather have twice as much ham costing 'only' €50/kg given a choice.

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