Rowley Leigh at his restaurant Le Café Anglais preparing Parma ham and figs

So there we were: it was 3am and we were playing skittles with empty bottles of prosecco. We were on to the grappa by then while one of the party played boogie-woogie on the piano, some people danced and the hotel barman had passed out.

Or rather, he didn’t. That’s how I imagined a typical press trip, but it didn’t happen like that. Instead we spent two hours in the courtyard of the town hall listening to a number of local politicians and dignitaries deliver carefully composed speeches extolling the unique qualities of the area, their patrimony and their hams. Further, each speech and speaker was prefaced by its own introduction, these given by a local “personality”, that I am afraid my impoverished Italian was not quite up to. At around midnight the speeches and introductions stopped, replaced by a local comedian who, to quote Charles Dickens, did “the police in different voices”.

We were done for. We managed a consolatory ice-cream in the town square before heading back to the hotel and bed. I’ve done my share of gadding about recently – you may have noticed – and a weekend in Parma was the last of the season before knuckling down to the day job. Press trips don’t have to be fun but they should at least be informative. After a while, eating large quantities of cured pig comes into neither category, although it was interesting to learn that the much-prized 36-year-old Parma ham is a rather dry and charmless commodity.

The next day things picked up. By 9.30 – after a breakfast at which one of our party curiously chose to eat yet more Parma ham – we were disgorged from a coach outside a pleasantly utilitarian edifice and deposited in a large first-floor chamber with no furniture other than a large stainless steel bench at one end, on which there was a large pile of salt. Our highly enthusiastic lecturer began to explain about the process of Parma ham.

The recipe is “sale e suino” and absolutely nothing else. Any recipe, any ingredient that is that simple, whether it be wine, farmhouse cheddar or a chocolate soufflé, gets my vote and the simplicity of the process of making Parma ham is almost bewildering. It is a tradition that requires perfectionism (the scrutiny of the raw hams is truly exhaustive) and precision and yet the salt is measured only by the handful and most of the ham’s 18-month sojourn is characterised by extreme indolence. After the second salting, which takes place after three weeks, little happens to the hams as they dry on wooden racks in huge rooms that may contain as many as 50,000 at a time.

The hams are massaged with a little rendered fat to keep the flesh soft after a few months. Apart from that, they simply mature. Eventually, inspectors from the Parma ham presidium will turn up and carry out endless checks, conducted by sticking a sharpened horse bone into various parts of the ham and smelling the result. Again, one has to admire any inspection that depends entirely on such human skills as a sense of taste and smell. At the end of our little tour the guide was asked if he could recognise his own hams in a blind tasting. His answer was as affirmative as that of a maker of a top Bordeaux.

It is the simplicity and elegance of Parma ham and its sweet fragrance that makes it so special. It is an arrogance of a chef, perhaps, to suggest recipes for a product that is at its best when served freshly cut, very thin with nothing but a few pieces of ripe melon or some figs. I was dismayed recently when I proposed a menu that included just that, followed by some roast chicken with morels: both were dismissed by the prospective client as “insufficiently celebratory”.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais
rowley.leigh@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Parma ham roast with figs, and diced in risotto

ROAST FIGS WITH PARMA HAM AND ROCKET
Just in case you should get bored eating your Parma ham with fresh figs – or the sliced ham has been hanging around too long – this makes an interesting variation. Serves 6.

Ingredients
12 figs, not overripe
12 slices Parma ham
500g rocket leaves
Extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon

Method
● Wrap each fig in the ham so that it is completely enclosed and set them in an ovenproof dish. Place in a preheated very hot oven, mark 9, and roast for 8-10 minutes. The ham should be crisp and the fig bursting with juice.
● Dress the rocket with the olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice – no further seasoning is necessary – and arrange in a pile on six plates. Place two figs on each pile and serve.

RISOTTO WITH PARMA HAM, FENNEL AND CHESTNUTS
There is a real purpose to this recipe: not only does it taste good but it is a good way of using up the butt end of the ham that is too tough and sinewy to serve.

Ingredients
400g chestnuts
125g Parma ham, in a piece
2 onions
6 heads Florentine fennel
100g butter
1 litre chicken stock
1kg risotto rice
750ml white wine
3 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
100g fresh grated Parmesan

Method
● Preheat the oven to mark 8 (230ºC, 450ºF). With a small sharp knife, make a small incision down the middle of each chestnut and place them in a roasting tray and into the oven. Shake the chestnuts after five minutes and remove them once the shells start to split open. Let them cool a little before peeling off the shells. Chop the chestnut flesh coarsely and reserve.
● Cut the ham into small dice of half a centimetre square. Peel and chop the onion finely. Trim the tops from the fennel – keep them for later – split the bulbs lengthways and chop them just as fine as the onion. Melt half the butter in a heavy saucepan and add the ham. Turn up the heat and colour the meat well. Add the onions and fennel together and stew on a reduced heat, turning regularly until they begin to soften. Bring the stock to the boil in a separate pan.
● Add the rice to the pan, season it well with salt and milled pepper and turn it in the mixture until every grain is well coated in the butter. Pour in all the wine, add the bay leaves and stir well. Turn down the heat and let the liquid come gently to the boil. Let it simmer slowly, stirring it occasionally until the wine has been absorbed and the rice starts to stick. Now start to incorporate the hot stock in the normal fashion and continue to cook until the rice begins to “give”, while still firm and nutty to the bite. Stir in the remaining butter and half the cheese, check the seasoning and serve with the remaining Parmesan on the side.