Pigs in flight
A tasting at Ala Pršutija
The restaurant has a sense of humor and attention to detail on parr with its food, as shown in the engraved bases of their tasting stands.
Suppose you’ve led the right sort of life. In that case, you’ve probably enjoyed a wine flight: a curated selection of four to six sample vintages offering an introduction to a particular grape, style, or region. It’s usually presented with a flourish, a neat row of glasses arranged in a suggested order for tasting, accompanied by a narrative from the sommelier. It’s both pretentious and practical, making a virtue of your ignorance.
I’ve had beer flights organized on similar lines and even a version featuring different kinds of hot sauce. But last night, I had my new favorite incarnation: the prosciutto flight.Dry-aged hams, preserved without smoking, are popular throughout the north Mediterranean littoral (I bet they’d also be loved on the southern coast, were it not for the Islamic prohibition of consuming pork). Americans are mainly familiar with Italian prosciutto; some are acquainted with Spanish jamón. But the Slovene or Croatian pršut isn’t known widely beyond its North Adriatic home.
That’s a pity because both countries produce delicious hams of this variety. It’s the same with their cheese and wine—both are similar to what you’d find in Italy or Spain and (at least to my mind) can often rival or surpass their better-known cousins.
But back to the prosciutto flight! This brilliant presentation is courtesy of Ala Pršuterija, a ham-focused restaurant on the banks of the Ljubljanica River. Their menu offers a generous array of charcuterie and cheese boards, backed by a formidable local wine list (and some Slovenian craft beers).
We’re on the right bank of the Ljubljanica, near the Ribja (Fishmarket) Bridge; Ala Pršuterija is on the left.
The restaurant’s interior (seen from my table in the back).
The bill of fare includes this recommendation: “Would you like to compare Spanish, Croatian, Italian, and Slovenian prosciutto? In that case, do not miss our tasting rack.” While passing the restaurant yesterday, I glimpsed this unusual construct. I returned today in the hope that it wasn’t some fever dream; my fears were unfounded, as it was all too deliciously real.
All their ham is cut on an ingenious copper-bladed device called a berkelca that shaves each slice in a single go without heating the meat in the process. They claim this yields particularly tender pieces that “melt in your mouth.” No matter how you slice it, pork will not dissolve on the tongue (if it did, that’d be rather gross)—but the prosciutto was definitely more delicate and tender than the leathery strips one generally encounters in the States.
I’ve got a weakness for collecting single-purpose cookware and appliances (e.g., my copper fish poacher, molds for making mooncakes and modak, hand-cranked grinder for turning slaked corn into masa, and wet mill to prepare dosa and idli batter). I have yet to purchase a berkelca—but it’s probably only a matter of time because apparently I just can’t help myself.
Ala Pršuterija serves their prosciutto flights on wooden racks, clearly custom-made. Five slices of ham were draped on each of the rack’s four rods. From top to bottom, they were (E) Spanish, (IT) Italian, SI (Slovenian), and (HR) Croatian. Olives and slices of freshly baked bread came along for the ride.
The countries of origin are indicated by the abbreviations carved into the support on the right. I’m writing these notes by a “ham lamp”—the rosy light filtering through thinly sliced ham.
I’ll admit I was skeptical at first. Too many years designing UX tests have left me wary of leading the subject—in other words, by telling me that there were four different kinds of visually identical ham, I’d be presupposed to find differences between them. But if I’d been given thirty slices of meat, randomly ordered without any labels, I would have found them much of a muchness.
To my surprise, each row had a distinct character, and sampling them in different orders, some with bread and others au naturel, reinforced that impression.
It turns out that (at least from the four samples I was given) prosciutto from these four countries aren’t interchangeable. And I came away confident that I knew which I preferred and which I’d politely pass over. (Let me be clear: they were all delicious, but the whole point of this exercise is to discern the tiny differences that elevate one above the others).
Here’s my final ranking (least favorite to most loved):
4. Croatian
It was far too salty to enjoy on its own, and its sodium level might overwhelm anything but a substantial piece of bread. Not a great pairing with briny olives.
3. Italian
Perfectly acceptable and utterly inoffensive. A safe and forgettable choice bland enough to please absolutely everyone. In other words, classy supermarket-brand ham.
I’ll admit that the Italian prosciutto might have been nerfed to give the other choices a leg up. Perhaps this was a mass-produced variety; a more artisanal Italian selection would have performed better. Yet it tasted like the Italian prosciutto I’ve had before, so either I’ve been eating rubbish, or the “real thing” loses some of its luster in head-to-head comparison.
1&2. Spanish and Slovenian (tie)
I was honestly torn between these two. The Spanish ham was complex and almost nutty (I assume the pigs had been fed what their wild ancestors would have scavenged from the forest floor). The Slovenian was lighter and sweeter but with an unexpected wave of richness at the finish.
My friendly waitress said her ranking was the same. Since the staff never humors customers, I take this as irrefutable confirmation of my assessment.
I think Slovene cuisine (and Croatian food to a lesser extent) is cheated of its due by always being defined in terms of the foodways of other countries. You’ll often hear that it’s been heavily influenced by Italian cuisine or South German food—both statements are true, yet they suggest Slovenians are merely imitating what the people around them eat.
Slovenians have been living and cooking in this corner of the world for well over a thousand years; they’re not some arrivistes who’ve picked up a native cuisine and tried to make it their own. (In other words, their cuisine is analogous to neither Tex-Mex nor Anglo-Indian “curry.”)
Wouldn’t it be more even-handed to say that dry-cured hams, hard sheep milk cheeses, small potato dumplings, and hand-rolled pasta shapes are characteristic of Northern Adriatic food, with every culture giving each its own particular twist? I’m sure that would put more than a few Italian noses out of joint (I doubt the Austrians would take nearly as much offense), but che sará sará as Doris Day might tell them.