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I'm also partial to Dalmatian pršut, especially the drier, older stuff. Ideally, the leg is cured in pure Adriatic seawater (from the Croatian side, where it's cleaner!), pressed between two stones to remove the water, then dried in the Bura winds over winter. Sometimes it gets smoke during aging, sometimes not. One of my neighbors in Marina (about 20 minutes from Trogir) makes the absolute finest dry-cured ham I've ever tasted. Pršut is also often sliced a little (or a lot) thicker, which makes eating it an exquisitely slow, visceral mastication. When we watched the 2006 World Cup on the docks in Kućište, across the canal from Korčula, we got by with little more than a whole pršut, a fairly dull cleaver, a few loaves of bread, a wheel of Paški sir and some olive oil. And wine. I actually prefer having to work on a slice of pršut for five minutes.

As for what's readily - and legally - available in the US, I find myself drawn more to Spanish jamons, probably because they remind me more of pršut than the sweeter, more fragrant Italian variants. I'm not at all against sweet aromatic hams; I'll gladly gobble them down. But the unornamented flavor and deep crimson hue of pršut? Nothing finer, or more pure and essentially "pork" for me.

I haven't had too many Istrian hams, but I'm sure Mario's partner Mr. Bastianich could tell us a thing or two about them.

What do you think of the Prosciutto from Norcia? I hear they figured out a way to cure them without any salt.