It’s the most expensive ham in the world - about $100 a pound - and also the most prized: Spain’s renowned jamon iberico de bellota. Now, for the first time, it’s legally available in the United States. And it looks as if we’ll soon be able to get a taste without leaving the Valley.

Bellota ham comes from black-hoofed iberico pigs that roam free and feed on acorns (”bellota” in Spanish). The pampered pigs’ lush lifestyle - plus three years of air-dried salt curing - creates incomparably luscious meat, complex, intensely rich, sweet and nutty.

In 2005, our bacteria-conscious government agreed to lift the import ban, certifying a Spanish producer who conformed to strict American hygienic standards. (Never mind that bellota ham goes back centuries and has long been exported all over the world.)  Fast-forward three years to 2008: The first certified pig-to-ham cycle has been completed, and his hams are off to market. The wholesale cost: about $1,500 for a typical, 15-pound, bone-in leg.

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Orce Serrano Hams husband and wife team Iain Macdonald and Gayle Hartley own and run Spain’s leading artisan online delicatessen from Andalucia. Carefully retailing some of the world’s finest cured hams and charcuterie via mail order throughout Europe.

Duncan Bannatyne showed his support for the delicatessens specialist Serrano hams by revealing ‘its got to be the best ham I have tasted’. As Spanish hams go Orce Serrano hams retail the true artisan side of Spain, unique hams available only from small local Spanish producers. Duncan Bannatyne also continued to explain, ‘The ham was absolutely delicious, it was fantastically cured and well packaged, a big thank you to Gayle and Iain.’

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Pepe Feijoo rips open an oblong box, grasps a Spanish ham by the bone and shows it off to a visitor as though he was unveiling a work of art.

In a sense, this imported ham — jamón Ibérico de bellota — is a masterpiece, the Spanish food world’s equivalent of a Picasso. The ham is named for the black-footed Iberian pig breed and for the acorns — bellota — that these free-range animals eat in the forest. And the ham is considered a delicacy — known for its nutty flavor, deliciously creamy white fat and a deep mahogany-color meat.

“This pig is not too fat but tall”, says Feijoo, holding the bone-in ham, which measures about 2 feet. The prized ham is on the menu at Feijoo’s family-owned Costa del Sol restaurant in Hartford and for sale in the restaurant’s imported-food shop.

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