 Frank, you greasy Italian, where is the Pellegrino? What's going on? How are you guys? Today we are talking about the most famous hams in the world. Which one is the best? Is it Italy? Spain? Perhaps even France. The wild card, America. So first we have Hamon di Bayon, which is a French ham that has PGI status, protected geographical indication, produced in the Adwar Basin in southwest France, with both pigs and salt that come only from that region. Second, we have probably the best known, two Italian hams, Pesciutto di Parma and Pesciutto di San Daniele. This is the real fucking guiney shit, give it to me. I can say that? Yeah. I'm a Jewish guy. I can still say it? No. This is the real guiney shit, give it to me. This is the real fucking guiney shit. This is the real fucking guiney shit, give it to me. Both are produced in northern Italy, San Daniele being further northeast, being made with slightly less salt, and the process to make these is slightly different, but both are aged approximately one year. Now finally we have the most famous ham in the world, Hamon iberico. And this is made specifically from black iberian pigs. The finest grade is known as Hamon iberico di Belota, from pre-range pigs that roam oak forest, eating exclusively the acorns during their last period of life. The ham is cured for a minimum of three years, and depending on the purity of that diet and the purity of the breed of the animal, it can get several grades, black label being the highest. Here I actually have some fresh iberico. We offer this on Frankie's free range meat. This is iberico di Belota, it's so red, it almost actually tastes like beef as well outside of its appearance. The most delicious meat I've had, I would say this is up there with the Wagyu grass-fed beef we sell, except you can literally taste the acorns and the nuttiness of this meat when you have it. We do have the cured ham as well. And before we taste these famous hams, I have hams from each of these countries that don't have this protected status. Every single one of these hams needs to be made in a very specific way, but there are also cheaper versions of hams made from lower quality pork with less refined processes. And this will give us an idea of if you don't want to spend as much money, if you don't, you know, this is the most money I think I've ever spent on food. This was like $70 for a pound of iberico ham. The other stuff isn't nearly as expensive, you know, but these lower grades of ham are affordable. So we're going to try those first. This is just jamón serrano, which means, you know, it's ham from part of Spain. And you can even tell, you know, if we start looking at the, you know, the color and the fat distribution of these hams, there's not much of a color difference between the Spanish ham and the Italian ham, but the French ham is a bit darker in color. This indicates a slightly higher feed quality. But what's going to really determine the flavor of these cheaper hams is how long they were aged and the amount of salt used. The serrano, the Spanish ham is pretty dry. Not much flavor. You could tell that, you know, the fat of the animal isn't that high quality because there's a lack of flavor. And the ham doesn't seem to have been aged that much. So I would say this is that great. Hamón serrano is usually one of the cheaper hams. So this is Italian ham. I don't think it's considered prosciutto di parma, but it's called prosciutto italiano. This already feels moisture than the other one. Oh yeah, actually way better. Definitely saltier, has like, that slightly fermented flavor, and just much more complex in general. Probably made from a higher quality cork. So for the cheaper hams, Italians in the lead, Ken France dethrone the cheap Italian ham leader. Now nearly as salty, and because of that, the flavor doesn't seem as pronounced. This is definitely made from a higher quality animal, and the flavor is slightly better. You know, but since it wasn't salted as heavily, and it doesn't seem like it was aged as much, and the flavor isn't as concentrated. I like the French ham, but out of all the cheap ones, the Italian is definitely better. For the higher grade hams, first we're going to try the American wild card, La Querscia, prosciutto americano, handcrafted in Iowa from Outdoor Raised Pork, Berkshire Heritage Breed, probably just, you know, regular crappy corn and soy fed pork. So appearance-wise, you know, it doesn't look that great, you know, and the way it's packaged to, the way it's cut, very dry, very, very dry. I could feel the salt on the outside. Maybe it's just, they use a lot of salt to make this. It feels like leather, to be honest. Okay, honestly, I usually never spit out food, but that's bad. La Querscia, I'm sorry if this is some, some like old product, or if you guys just suck at making ham, I don't know. America's out the window, unfortunately. I do remember having that ham in the past, and I don't think it was that bad. But either way, the flavor wasn't that good anyway. So now we're going to have the Bayonne ham, Hamon de Bayonne. So this should be better than the other French ham we just had. That wasn't protected status, it feels moist. Smells great. It's similar to the other French ham, in the sense that it's not heavily salted, the flavor of the meat, the quality of the meat seems good. And I really like this because it's not super salty that you typically have. It's definitely better than the cheaper one, but not by much. All right, now we're going to try the Pesciutto di Parma. Slightly higher salt content than the French ham. Not as much flavor. Yeah, Pesciutto di Parma is very classic. That's what you typically expect when you taste Pesciutto. But it's not outstanding. So this is the Pesciutto San Daniele. As we said earlier, it's made with less salt and it is more expensive. Smells great. That smells like a foot away, unlike the other ones, notably less salty. The problem is, if you're comparing a bunch of different hams, the saltier one usually wins out if your palate isn't that refined. I mean, my cave. I think the Pesciutto di Parma is slightly better than the San Daniele, but I think it might be just because of the salt content. And the quality of the San Daniele pork, there's not a significant enough difference for it to be better. I'm going to try the French ham di Bayonne one more time to make a decision between these few. I hate to break it to my Italian ancestors, but the French have better tasting pigs. This is significantly better. It's not as salty. It has more flavor. And it's gluten-free. Go figure. Ham is gluten-free, who knew? This is actually the first time I've ever ordered anything from FreshDirect. I ordered a Hamona Ibarico from my restaurant supplier, but they didn't have any. And then I was stuck with $100 worth of ham and no Ibarico to compare it to. So I had to find another way to get this. And that way was FreshDirect. That being said, I'm glad I did because I forgot to mention, unlike all of these other hams, Spain now has a requirement to add nitrates to their ham because there was like a botulism outbreak like 20 years ago or something ridiculous. So where all of these hams are made with just salt and ham, they add sodium nitrite and potassium nitrate to this ham, which is unfortunate because without a doubt, this is the most beautiful pork on the planet. And they added preservatives with nitrates to it. So if you're trying to avoid that type of stuff, Hamona Ibarico, Spanish hams, usually do have nitrates added to them, unlike the Italian hams, unlike the French hams. And here we see, you know, there's a significant color difference compared to what we were eating, the other stuff we were eating. It's red, completely red, completely dark. Smells significantly different. Is this Belota? This is Belota. I can't pin what this flavor is. It's like the fat, the fat is like coating my mouth and it's melting, unlike the other hams. It's not nearly as salty. The flavor's pretty good. Honestly, it's not as good as I thought it was gonna be. It has a very interesting, unique and complex flavor. The flavor can't even be compared to other hams. It's just so unique, it doesn't even taste like ham. And the texture is way different as well. It has a higher fat content. The fat really coats your mouth and it creates this whole new textural experience. I'm gonna try the French ham again and we'll make a decision. I'm gonna be drinking like a gallon of water later. Probably like two gallons actually. Now that I've eaten over two pounds of salted pork, I think I have a pretty solid decision. So without a doubt, by far, the Iberico is the best tasting overall. I think that was gonna be pretty obvious, but at $70 a pound, it is multiple times more expensive than all of these other hams. Surprisingly, my second favorite ham was the cheap Italian ham. What is this? Prosciutto Italiano from Maestri, dry cured ham product of Italy. This was the second best one. The Hamon di Bayone, the IGP, the protected French ham, Bayone ham. I think that was the third best. Prosciutto di Parma, Prosciutto di San Danielle. Both good, both good. The Serrano ham was probably the lowest on the list outside of the La Corsica, which was probably just like old, I don't know what was going on there. And the cheap French ham is also pretty good. So you can't really go wrong with most of these. The thing is I would avoid the American stuff and I would avoid the cheaper Spanish stuff. Although I will say I have had some decent products from La Corsica, so I'm inclined to believe that it was just old and not kept properly. So let's talk about the health and nutrition of this ham a little bit. Most of these will be high in Omega-6 because of what the animals are being fed, not ideal Omega-3 acid ratios. However, the Iberico di Belota, the very expensive Spanish ham, is going to have a good Omega-3 ratio because of the diet the pigs are fed and it's also gonna be very nutrient dense and very nutritious. And yet not everyone's gonna be able to afford that. It is a raw food, so it doesn't stress those enzymes in your body, but it is heavily salted and it is high in histamine. So your body does need other things to process those to. Not exactly a low-stress food, especially when I consume two pounds of it. So something like this, I have no problem introducing this into my diet on a daily or weekly basis. The other hams, it's up to you. If I'm traveling for lunch, I will have a pound, a pound and a half of prosciutto and some sparkling mineral water, a very Italian snack, but out of all the things you can get in the supermarket, imported Italian ham, French ham, Spanish ham are all pretty low inflammatory compared to a lot of other foods you could be choosing. I wouldn't focus too much on nutrients unless you're getting the Spanish ham. You're just giving your body B vitamins and easily digestible protein. So thank you guys for joining me. If you could please like the video, subscribe if you haven't and above all, please share the video if you enjoyed it. If you guys would like to support me further, definitely check out Frankie's Fringe Meat. And I mentioned earlier, we have the Iberico di Belota, the fresh pork. In the future, if you guys support us, hey maybe we'll get some of these hams and a deli slicer and we'll sell this stuff as well for you guys. You can also check out Frankie's Naturals for minimal ingredients, minimally processed, hygiene and cosmetic products. Thanks again for joining me guys and enjoy the rest of your day.