ARACENA, Spain — “How do you like the ham?” asked Manolo Romero de la ... “jamón”) and front legs (called “paleta,” or shoulder) sit in salt for a few weeks (one day per kilogram).

“We call it jamón when the legs of the pork have been cured naturally, leaving the hams hanging to air dry,” explains Alberto Andrés of La Central, a Spanish delicatessen and bodega in Melbourne. “In ...