Spanish ham

The discussion about what I was being fed, that first meal in the De Gracias-Clotet home remains as one of my all-time favorite memories of my visit. I had asked Albert what the meat was (it was thinly-sliced, salty, had little fat, and was full of flavor.) He kept telling me that it was "Spanish Jam." I had the worse time trying to figure-out what he was attempting to say. In retrospect I can easily see that he meant "ham" instead of "jam" but at the time I was completely stumped and remember sitting there in my chair feeling bewildered. Now I know that it was a ham much like the Italian proscuitto, in that it had been dry-cured in salt, but at the time I had no comprehension of what it was that I was eating, except that it was delicious.