Iberian Pig

     Iberian Pig; I didn't know about it, but many co-workers did. It seems that it's very famous, though I didn't know it. I looked it up on the internet. Iberian Pig is a kind of pig. It is bred only in the western part of Spain. It has usually black feet and nails. They freely feed on natural cereal crops like acorns in the forest of oaks, cork oaks, or they are sent to graze grass, seeds and grass roots. Its fat contains olein acid derived from their food, acorns.
    Last night, I attended the meeting of doctors in the neighborhood. After that, we dropped in at a wine bar and found a thing just in front of us that I'd never seen before. It was a leg of the Iberian pig. I'll show you in the picture. Pictures were taken by my cell phone camera and its resolution is terrible, but look at it. I thought it was just a kind of ornament at first glance. The owner told us that it was an Iberian pig and to try it. The second picture was the plate with some slices of the pig on it. It was the first time for me to eat it and it was not bad to eat with wine.
     Japanese pigs are bred on food that is common for humans, but Iberian pigs aren't. I thought it's reasonable or useful in case of a food shortage.

(Vocabulary)
cereal crop  穀物
oak  樫
cork oak   《植物》 コルクガシ
send ~ to graze  （家畜などを）放牧する
graze  [自] 〈家畜が〉 生草を食べる
[他] 〈家畜〉 に生草を食べさせる, 〈土地〉 を牧草地として使う
[他] 〈皮膚など〉 をすりむく
oleic acid 《化》 // olein acid  オレイン酸

(KW: イベリコ豚)

Comments

[Sarah]

Interesting. And how ironic. Did you look up the information on the pig first, before you found it at the wine bar, or did you go to the wine bar and then after eating the pig, look it up? I wonder if an Iberian pig is more healthy to eat, than other pigs who eat on scraps of human food. (sarah)