A Puebla ham holder, not just for pork crackling

It was in 1493, on Christopher Columbus' second voyage, that it became known that the first eight pigs were shipped to the New World.

The pigs were landed in Hispaniola, today an island divided between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

They were times of hunger and at the same time of adventure. What was this land that existed on the other side of the sea, three times bigger than all the kingdoms of León, Castille, Aragón, Navarra and Portugal put together? With a temperate climate and crystal clear springs, abundant hunting, pheasants, partridges, deer, wild boars...

Meanwhile, in the Old World, the ancient and age-old towns remained. One of these is called Cumbres Major, which belonged to the territory of Seville, in the province of Huelva, Spain. During the 16th century, Cumbres Major gained great importance for the income from the sale of pork and meat salting.  

Juan Lozano Moreno was born there. He arrived in Puebla in 1601 and married a widow established in the city who was devoted to the production of hams, an activity that would become one of the most prosperous industries in this place for more than two centuries.

Since then, Puebla would serve as the most important pig and ham producing center in New Spain. The pork sellers guild would become one of the most influential in the city hall. In 1746, there were 50 pork sellers in total.

The activity of the pork guild would be intensely regulated, since, together with wheat milling and the textile industry, it was one of the most important economic activities of the region and of Puebla's main contributions to the economy of the New Spain.

So important was the pork economy that it created its own culture: that of killing pigs in the courtyards of houses at night and then offering its meat on tables on public streets, with heads, offal and other cuts hanging on hooks and sticks.

This sale mostly happened on Saturdays and Sundays in the busy courtyards and squares of the city, where also the stalls with sancocho (fried stew), chicharrón (pork crackling) and carnitas (pulled pork) were set up, filling the atmosphere with peculiar aromas that attracted everyone in equal measure.

In the 17th century, pigs entered the city through the gatehouses in large herds. The disorder that their transit into the city caused and the anarchic proliferation of the pork sellers as a result of unruliness led the municipal authorities to seek to locate these establishments in the indigenous neighborhoods of the city.

The municipal provisions were not respected, the pigs wandered the streets, entered the church courtyards, cooled themselves in the water of the fountains and the inhabitants of the flourishing city were faced with the problem of forced coexistence with animals in public spaces.

Meanwhile, Juan Lozano's pork business collapsed in 1757, as by then it was no longer registered within the city's pork sellers guild. It wasn't until 1960 that a family descended from Lozano resumed the activity of raising pigs in Atlixco, Puebla.

At the same time, the prized pork fat was replaced with vegetable oils, and the fat-producing pig breeds were disappearing, giving rise to meat-producing breeds. Pigs of the ancient Iberian race lost value, as did the matured hams processing industry.

As a result, the population of Iberian pigs in Mexico lagged to the point of almost extinction.  This type of pig is known as Mexican Creole hairless pig, direct descendants of the Black hairless Iberian pig that arrived in America.

The family descended from the Lozano's decided to rescue the ancient Iberian breed and also to make cured and matured hams as their ancestors had done in the Puebla ham and pork shop of the 16th and 17th centuries. 

The Puebla family, current producers of Iberian pork and cured hams, although distantly related to Lozano, has the knowledge necessary to make these extraordinary hams, which, slowly matured, can be tasted in the cellars and on the tables of a very special gastronomic place in the city, the Casa del Mendrugo.