Spanish ham joins French cheese on U.S. blacklist

First George W. Bush tripled the duty on Roquefort cheese as a farewell gesture to France. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has doubled it for jamon iberico, a prized ham which comes with the leg bone still inside. What’s more, the hams will have to be sold without a black hoof attached, their defining ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
588551_090212_jamon5.jpg
588551_090212_jamon5.jpg

First George W. Bush tripled the duty on Roquefort cheese as a farewell gesture to France. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has doubled it for jamon iberico, a prized ham which comes with the leg bone still inside. What’s more, the hams will have to be sold without a black hoof attached, their defining characteristic.

I won’t pretend to understand why it’s so important that the hoof be included, but apparently it’s VERY important:

There was a scandal in Madrid 9 or 10 years ago when a company was caught painting the hooves on its white Serrano hams black in order to pass them off as the far more valuable Iberico Pata Negra. Apparently, some of the paint finally rubbed off on an unsuspecting shopper and there was public outrage.

The newspapers followed the story, chronicling the plight of the duped ham lovers and the evil doers who had sold them a faux Ibérico ham with a painted hoof. The government finally intervened, and the populace was calmed. Even today, you can spot the occasional ham shopper in Spain rubbing the hoof to make sure that its color is natural.

U.S. afficionados apparently paid up to $200 per ham and waited up to seven years for them to become available. Could this all be a massive government experiment to see how much Americans will pay for snooty European food products?

Financial tips aren’t usually our thing here at Passport. But in today’s wintry economic climate, stockpiling blood sausage, escargot, and Nutella is starting to seem like a sound strategy.

Photo: PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/Getty Images

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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