New Generation of Women: Spanishes Who Tell Ham – BBC News in Serbian

Cutting the Thicks of the Iberian ham in bars, restaurants and on various celebrations, is traditionally male job.

The new generation of women begins to take place at the cutting table.

Hamon Iberiko (Jamon Iberico), masterfully dried ham Iberian pigs, is part of Spanish culinary history since Roman times and probably the most cultivated food product of this country.

There is no celebration in Spain without a masters for cutting prosciutto, pork butt and a tray with a bordeau-red hammed creamy and nut layer.

Sliced ​​masters are respected and celebrated because of their inserts.

It is not a small thing to cut a huge butt so that all the standards of its qualities deserve a fed pig, whose meat was dried about three years and achieve a balance of taste in every filled bite.

A large number of competition in the cutting of prosciutto organized in Spain tells us how seriously this job is taken.

Hands that keep long, thin knives were common for several reasons.

Traditionally, men were killed and transperting animals and possessed Hamoneries (dried products).

At the same time, the waiters in Spain are mostly men and are also in charge of cutting ham for restaurants and bar guests.

Many among them developed independent careers just like well paid masters to cut ham.

Spanish word for the one cut prosciutto, Cortadorit was originally nor had a female form that would describe the woman who performs that job.

Cortadora was a name for a metal hutting machine.

As increasingly large number of women began working in service activities, opportunities were also opened to work on hams themselves.

Some of them became true stars on this scene.

One such women is Rakel Alkot (31), one of the most famous and most respected cutters in Spain.

She did not see himself in that job and began standardized in the restaurant hierarchy, peeling potatoes to the chef in the culinary school.

When her friend mentioned that one cutting master asks someone to work with him, Rakel signed up for the competition and got a job.

The Akstand remembers how she watched the then boss who flew all over the world around the world, touring various events and thought of wanting to be like him.

« I wanted his job, » says Alkot.

Ten years later, she has soping companyhe’s constantly on his way, and she cut the prosciutt even for the actor Robert de Nir.

Born in Burgos in Castile and Leon Province, she began to cook for her family as a teenager.

Assembly in the family with 15 members, she says, she came well.

It now works more than 250 events a year, are mostly food fairs or company celebrations.

Akstand was gained in various competitions and says that, in total, her male colleagues encouraged and supported themselves in efforts to participate on them.

Sometimes, however, asked if they called to participate only because it took that a woman was in competition.

« Cortadores are now jealous of me, » a briefcase is joking.

« I can understand that because I have more work from them, » he added this Speaker.

The salary for those at the top can be good and can be earned up to a thousand euros for all-day engagement, with the hammer price not part of this calculation.

The Akstand now tries to form a completely female team for cutting ham, partly due to increased demand of her customers, because they prefer to watch women on their celebrations.

She was not sure what was behind this trend, but she had already said, « Okay, Rakel, such is demand. »

The problem is, and someone will find someone who will climb a feverish life that involves jobs and travel that take more than 40 hours a week in some parts of the season.

The public aspect of such a woman is refusing, considered Marija Castro Bermudes-Koronel, a 143-year-old communication manager Cinco Jotas.

« I always try to bring women to organized events, but the problem is that they don’t want to go because they are shy, » says Bermudes-Koronel.

Cinco Jotas It employs about a hundred people as masters for cutting ham in sterile rooms of their base in Hubugu, in Huelva Province.

Have a equal number of male and female workers.

They also send their own masters to celebrations around the world, but Bermudes-Koronel says it is difficult to encourage women to look for work abroad, because they do not want to go with families outside the country.

The story of Maria Ray Mange goes in a reverse direction, from Equatorial Guinea to Spain and Madrid, where 32-year-old cortador has been working for seven years.

« It was hard for me in Galicia, » said Mange Ray for her early years spent in Spain as a 21-year-old with a baby.

« I didn’t have regulated papers, at night I had to look for food at night, » he recalls.

After two years, she moved to Madrid and found a job as a waitress.

« Then there were no women who dealt with the cutting ham and was not clear to me why it was so.

« I became curious, » she says.

One day, while she was at work, she approached her restaurant in which she worked and said, « Cut me a chick ham! »

He noticed that he had a good hand for cutting and the next day he took off from the job of the waitress and sent the intensive cutting of the ham.

She now works this job in an exclusive restaurant Ten con tan in the Spanish capital.

As African Americans in the white and on stage dominated by men, she was not ‘easy’, says Mange, who became a citizen of Spain this year.

« The black-moving girl who cuts prosciutto before the audience is a rather unusual scene, » he adds.

« Anyway, part of my job as a cutter are just exotic and unique, a picture of African who deals with such a male and Spanish business such as cutting ham ».

She compared it to someone from Africa or Asia who stands out in such a way in the world of traditional flamenco dance.

« In the world of ham, I think I’ve never been handicapped as a woman from Africa, as it was in private life, » she added.

However, the professional scene is extremely competitive and people sometimes do not want to exchange experiences and discover others ways they attract customers.

In order to be successful, especially if you go to the scene independently, it is not bad to participate in competitions in the cutting ham, would not improve the work biography, it says.

Even if you lose, people start recognizing your face and to ask about wedding, baptism or corporate celebrations.

The competition is incomparably smaller outside Spain where Eva Marija Garsci barred knives in the last six years.

This 37-year-old woman from Madrid did not learn the cutting craft until she moved to the UK and began working for Brindisuat the Borough’s market in London.

« I had a photographic memory related to cutting ham, because I always watched my mother and grandfather as she was cut.

« In my house, the ham was arriving at Christmas, but I didn’t even touch my parents, and then I went to London and he studied in one Spanish. » She remembers.

And what is the secret of the perfect shny?

« It must have accurate dimensions and thickness – it is about a credit card thickness or even thinner – that all taste would transfer to your mouth.

« So you get a feeling of melting meat in your mouth in contact with body temperature, » Garcia says.

Garcia right now leads the firm offered by services as well as cutting courses.

She was one of the six finalists At 35. Gourmet Salon in Spainthe largest gastronomic fair in Europe.

She cut prosciutto at the Embassy of Spain in London, as well as on horse races in Royal Ascot at the beginning of 2024. Regarding the celebration of Platinum Jubilee Queen.

After the week of cutting two hams a day, I didn’t feel the fingers anymore, Garcia said.

Women do not cut anything differently from men, cortadors say, but every professional, whether male or female, brings its own energy and creative contribution to cutting and serving.

After all, this skill perfects with exercise, patient and cutting hundreds of ham.

See what the biggest secret nibs of prosciutto melting in your mouth

The guide through hams

Here are some tricks that could help you understand different types of Iberian ham:

« Jamon Iberico« It is a general name for all hams coming from purebred or crossed Iberian pigs with four different spanish locations with origin: extremadure, Huelve, Los Pederokes and Guihuela.

Dried hams have a clear labeling system with colored marks that give information about the type of pigs and the way of her upbringing and eating.

Black label: The most valuable ham obtained from a purebred Iberian pig that lived outside in the oak forest and pastures covered with acorn.

Such a ham is called Hamon de Belota 100 percent Iberiko and the only one is legally can be called a name Pata negra (black leg).

Belota in Spanish means acorns.

Red label: Also a pig that lives outside, but this one is crossed with white, usually breed Durk.

The label means the percentage of the Iberian pig combination and it is commonly 50 or 75 percent.

And this pig was fed by the acorn so that he deserves the label on which he writes Hamon de Belota Iberiko.

Green label: Incented varieties, which is grown in and eaten, but live in a larger area of ​​white pigs and sometimes go out.

They are called even CEBO CAMPO IBERICO.

White label: Also crossed, half-Iberian pig worn indoors, in strict conditions and feeds exclusively by cereals.

This ham is also carried by the name Core Iberico.

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