Jamon Serrano Alpujarra

I did manage to squeeze in some time to do a sketch, shown at the top of the post, which I’ll finish off over the next week or so but this is how the initial line drawing looks straight off the scan. It is a view from our patio ‘balcony’ over some neighbouring houses and garden. I took so many photographs that I’ll be editing for ages if I’m not ruthless, the downside of digital cameras is you shoot happily away and end up with ton of images. I may need to show them all as a separate gallery slideshow.

The Las Alpujarras region in general is seriously breathtaking. Snow-capped peaks form the backdrop to the whole area. The roadside fringes are now full of poppies and wildflowers and herbs and wonderful swaying grasses. The fields have olive trees and fruit trees in the hundreds and swallows, swifts and house martins swoop everywhere. Surprisingly there weren’t as many large birds of prey as we’ve seen in other areas of Spain although we did see some. Perhaps vultures, they seemed very large even at the heady height they wheeled at way, way above us. What we did find amusing was that we saw no live pigs. This region is a pork-lover’s heaven, porcine goodies abound in all forms, everywhere. Famous for its air-cured ham, the jamon serrano in the La Alpujarras is delicious, the only meat on sale at the local butcher in Pitres was pork, pork and more pork. His morcilla (blood sausage) was softly spiced (I detected clove and fennel) and won over a few blood sausage doubters among us. We seemed to eat our body weights in ham products, saw many a cured haunch hanging waiting for a buyer yet n’er did spy a living pig. We reckoned they shipped ‘em in and why not as these mountain villages are lucky to have such clean, dry air they make a perfect location for curing ham. The small town of Trevelez is the ‘promisd land’ of jamon serrano so of course we not only visited, bought some jamon but we also ate there. For my main I chose the dish of the day which was a ‘puchero’. That turned out to be a delicious pork based stew with chickpeas and potatoes. Simple to look at but packed full of long cooked flavours. Something to try recreating at a later date.