Alpujarras III: Trevélez

A 45 minutes drive on narrow mountain roads later we arrived at Trevélez. This small village is often said to be the highest village in Spain, elevated 1476 m. above the ocean, and being so is often used as an offset for mountaneers venturing off into the Sierra Nevada.

Our first goal in Trevélez was lunch. We ate at a restaurant, surprisingly capable of handling the horde of tourists arriving at the village. We had a pork soup of some sort (strange taste) with serrano ham, and a pork chop served with potatoes and… serrano ham. Around the table all courses (except desert and coffee…) were actually served with serrano ham. This is not normal for Spain, and by such one could wonder why this was so. Apart from its elevation, Trevélez, is even more known for producing the best Jamón de Serano (Serrano Ham) in Spain, which might explain the excessive use of serrano ham.

Very appropriately our next goal was to see how the serrano ham is produced in Trevélez and to discover the “Secret of the Ham” as we came to call it. For this we got admission to to a production facility. To get a visual impression of this, please go to the picture section. The ham is produced in 3 main steps:

1. Initially the ham is cured (salted) for 10 days in a big fridge. This is done by laying out a layer of salt, a layer of ham, a layer of salt etc. This process drives the water from the ham, and prevents it from rotting in the later processes.
2. After the curing, the ham is watered to get rid of most of the salt and the ham is hung in another fridge to dry. We didn’t get actually for how long the ham is hanging in this fridge…
3. It’s at the final stage of the process that we find the secret of the famous Trevélez ham. Here the ham is hung in temperate rooms, like any other serrano ham. The secret is that they actually ventilate with the fresh mountain air, which is said to produce the special taste that the Trevélez ham is reknown for. We went into two such rooms - very big rooms to be specific, resembling large butcher halls - with endless rows of ham hanging from the ceiling. We have never seen so much meat in one place before. How inviting it might sound the ham is hung in these rooms for 6 months to 2 years depending on how dark and strong the desired taste should be.

The smell in this meat factory was pretty peculiar, which is why we were releived when we finally got outside and got up into the bus heading off to our final destination: Capileira.