Perhaps it shouldn’t. Spain is the world’s fifth largest producer of pork, selling nearly three million tons a year, about a tenth of which is pernil/jamón. It is the second largest producer of lamb in the EU after Britain. And, although the country still represents the lowest per capita consumption of beef in the EU, and despite recent scares of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, even that is on the rise.
Meat in all its guises from pork and beef to horse and kangaroo is one thing. Butchering and animal husbandry are quite another, with slaughter regulations and jointing techniques differing greatly from place to place. British and American cuts tend towards lean, clean steaks and chops. In Catalunya and across Spain, however, with memories of harder times not so distant, every part of the animal is used from the callos (tripe) to the peus de paorc/manos (trotters), and muscles are cut whole from the carcass.
Mooch around the market and you’ll notice that an awful lot of stalls don’t label their cuts at all. So: away from the shiny aisles of the supermarket and the neatly packaged meat trays, how do you tell a prime sirloin from chuck (stewing steak)?
No matter your preference for beef (vedella/ternera), lamb (xai/ternasco) for a slightly older animal), pork (carn de porc/cerdo), or goat kid (cabrit/cabrito) having a basic knowledge of the anatomy helps, as does knowing that the harder the muscle had to work in life the tougher it will be when it comes off the stove. If all else fails, you can be safe in the knowledge that in a country where butchering is still a fine art, you can simply tell your local carnisseria (butcher’s shop) what you’re cooking, and they’ll recommend a cut.
For those going it alone, read on: the first rule of thumb is that if you want your meat to be tender, juicy and melt-in-the-mouth you need a certain degree of fat in it. It’s called marbling—the intramuscular fat that runs in delicate streams through the muscle—and as it melts during cooking it gives meat that highly desirable and unmistakably buttery texture.
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