The recent news that both China and America are now importing the prized Spanish ham, jamón ibérico, is spoken of by pork aficionados in the muted tone that you might speak in if you were confirming that a shipment of rocket propelled grenades had just reached your private guerrilla army.

From the Jamon.com blog:

We just received concrete information concerning the arrival of our jamones Iberico bellota. I will fill you all in shortly, but first we have an obligation to inform our our loyal reservation holders first. In some cases, they have been waiting for several years to receive this news.

It is safe to say with a degree of certainty that this July or August the first jamon iberico bellota hams will be in the homes of the community. Right now the hams are being prepared for shipment to the United States.

People who carry jamón into the U.S. face federal prosecution under the Animal Protection Act -- which aims to keep diseases away from American livestock -- and possible 10-year jail sentences and/or $50,000 fines. But the USDA says it is unaware that anyone has been prosecuted for jamón offenses

Australia only lifted its ban on importing jamon in 2006. With both the US and Chinese markets opening up to Iberian ham, will jamón ibérico become too costly for all but the most pork-hungry gourmands?

Good Iberian ham bears about as much relationship to your average Christmas ham as Christmas pudding does to accidentally eating pudding-shaped baubles from your Christmas tree. Broadly, there are three categories of the ham from the black-hoofed Iberian pigs. Jamón ibérico, that is made from a pig that lives your average, grain-fed and cooped up pig life; jamón ibérico de recebo from a pig put out to pasture and then fed with grain and acorns; and jamón ibérico bellota, from pigs that are set loose to range in the meadows and oak forests, gorging upon acorns (bellotas) and wild herbs as they come into season.

Each diet changes the subtler qualities of the finished hams, even when the hams are cured in the mountain air and then cellared for up to three years. Spanish ham research in the journal of Meat Science suggested that the loins from a forest-ranging pig "obtained the highest scores for appearance, odour and flavour in the rank order test sensory analysis"; higher than an attempt to mimic the diet of a free range pig in a regular pasture.

It is the opposite of a food that can be reproduced quickly or industrially, which is probably one of the non-taste related reasons behind its popularity. Supply is limited, somewhat justifying price tags greater than $600 a kilo for the top hams.With such a limited supply and relatively long production time, will it be possible that the hams will become unaffordable for the Spanish?

See also: Food Safari's Spanish ingredients