If you have lived outside the country for some time, among all the things you have missed the most, without a doubt, are the sausages. Chorizo, salchichón, ham, loin… Any culinary souvenir from the pig is always welcome with visits from family and friends, and if it can be Iberian, all the better.
You don’t have to be a lynx to differentiate the quality between one type of sausage or another at a glance. The marbling of the fat, the color of the meat or simply the aroma confirm whether we are dealing with an Iberian product or not.
In order to produce the best sausage, everything comes into play, and without a doubt one of the most important moments in the process is la montanera.
If you are a lover of sausages, surely you know a long time about tasting products and differentiating qualities, although it may be that if you have never set foot in a pasture, the processes that the Iberian pig goes through sound like Chinese to you.
With more than 60.00 hectares of pasture in Badajoz, Manor of Montanera boasts of having the best acorn-fed Iberian ham and of knowing very well and closely the production process. And, as its name suggests, to strictly respect the montanera.
Quality is in the montanera
“The montanera coincides with the period of acorn production in the fieldfrom the holm oak and the cork oak, so when the pig lives freely in the dehesa, enjoys more than three hectares of land per animal and feeds exclusively on acorns and natural pastures“, explains Alicia Carbajo, marketing director of Señorío de Montanera.
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The montanera is the last process of raising the Iberian pig before going into production, so it is a decisive period in the quality of the final product. “They are three or four months living freely in the field and consuming only acorns. Each Iberian pig can consume between 10 and 15 kilos of acorns per daywhich means about 600 kilos of acorns in total at the end of the montanera,” explains Carbajo.
“Each Iberian pig can consume between 10 and 15 kilos of acorns a day”
During the montanera process, the fattening of the pig is sought, ensuring the best possible quality in its muscles: “The pigs are taking a total of seven arrobas of weight, which is more than 80 kilos only consuming acorns and natural grasses”.
How long should the montanera of an acorn-fed Iberian pig last? According to the marketing director of the dehesa, the quality standard marks that the last 90 days minimum are consuming only acorns and natural pastures so that they are considered acorn-fed pigs.
Acorns, grass and lots of walking
Despite consuming no less than around 15 kilos of acorns a day, during the months that the montanera lasts, the Iberian pig also feeds on natural pastures: “Pigs are super gourmets because they peel the acorns, but the body also asks for a little green and they love to accompany the acorn with a little bit of grass”, says Alicia, who explains that the acorn is so astringent that, just like if we eat a steak or a stew, the body asks for something lighter, from the pig as well.
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The acorn has very high tannins so it leaves the mouth a bit corky. To help digest? Water. “They have to go get the water and travel between 10 and 15 kilometersso the meat is very fibrous, very muscular, and that in the end translates into meat of exceptional quality with a marbling of fat that acorn-fed Iberian products have,” says Carbajo.
The ‘preseason’ of the pig
The Iberian pig does not only live on montanera. As explained by Señorío de Montanera, this process must last at least 90 days and implies that the pig only feeds on acorns and natural grass, but what do they eat before?
“They travel between 10 and 15 kilometers, so the meat is very fibrous, very muscular”
“The pigs before entering montanera they consume feedbecause if there are no acorns in the field they have to consume fodder”, says Alicia, although in the case of this Extremaduran pasture, their specimens perform what is known as ‘double mount’.
“Now, as the dehesa empties they are introducing what in Extremadura ‘marranillos’which are the young pigs that are approximately one year old, and that will be the ones for next year’s montanera,” says Alicia Carbajo, who continues with the explanation of this process.
With this first contact with the dehesa, the aim is for these pigs, which are the future ones to complete the process, to get used to the environment: “On the ground there are still acorns and perhaps they are the less sweet, less appetizing and less fatty acorns that their older brothers have already left behind, but the pigs already they get used to having to look for themto the flavor they have…”, explains the marketing director.
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“Throughout this year, these pigs will dedicate themselves to eating feed here, in the pasture in the open air, to knowing where to look for water, where to find their food and to travel kilometers, above all to do that continuous exercise that is what makes muscles stronger and that quality meat that later gives us products as exceptional as the joys that 100% Iberian acorn-fed pigs give us”, concludes Alicia about this process.
Ham yes, but acorn-fed Iberian
We live in that continuous doubt about the caloric intake of sausages and their health benefits -or not-. Is ham fattening or not? We ask ourselves every time we try -again- to start the bikini operation.
If you have ever gone to a nutritionist, it will surely sound familiar to you that ham is healthy, but not just any type of ham.
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The montanera process also marks the difference between healthy sausages and those that are not as beneficial for health as we believe: “The pigs that are not raised in montanera they are raised intensively, on farms, and normally they feed on fodder, they cannot walk 15 kilometers a day, their meat is not so muscular and obviously they do not have that quality of fatty acids“, they assure from this meadow.
“If the ham is Iberico de bellota it is good for health because it has a very high oleic acid, but if it is not Iberico de bellota it is no longer so beneficial for health because what is high is palmitic acid and it is no longer a healthy cardio acid similar to olive oil,” summarizes Carbajo.
In addition to quality, choosing acorn-fed Iberico ham is synonymous with enjoying that flavor that only pigs that have passed through the montanera get.
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