As jam\u00f3n has become perhaps even more critical to Spain\u2019s sense of itself, and its export economy, top carvers like Mr. Soriano have grown in prominence. In recent years, a jam\u00f3n-cutting station has become a fixture at high society events. Nowadays, a wedding is judged, Mr. Soriano said only half-jokingly, less by the sanctity of the union than on the state of the ham.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t pay as much attention to the bride and groom,\u201d Mr. Soriano noted, adding that the number of weddings he and his team worked had exploded in recent years. That morning, a Joselito sales manager said, the company had closed a deal for six hams to be carved at a single baby\u2019s christening.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Mr. Soriano was selected to carve an 18-year-old Joselito ham, priced at more than $70,000, for an event at the Prado museum. In 2025, at the Casa Batll\u00f3 in Barcelona, Mr. Soriano wept as he sliced through a 20-year-old vintage bursting with umami flavor that his company said was worth roughly $94,000, he recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got emotional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Soriano, an easygoing guy who often stressed the need for teamwork, projects humility. He said what drives his success is passion for pork, rather than personal ambition.<\/p>\n
Jam\u00f3n \u201cis the star,\u201d he said. He shrugged with indifference at the mention of the world jam\u00f3n-carving championship, which this year was won by a heartthrob with gelled hair who, in contrast with Mr. Soriano, moves dramatically around the jam\u00f3n as if it were his flamenco partner.<\/p>\n
Mr. Soriano preferred to talk about how a carver should elicit flavor from a leg, drawing out differences in texture and complexity from the fat.<\/p>\n
He began learning the way of the ham knife nearly 40 years ago as a 15-year-old high school dropout at a deli in his family\u2019s working-class area of Madrid. For the first month or so, he had to machine cut mortadella. \u201cThey don\u2019t let you touch a ham,\u201d he said. But the boss saw that the young apprentice, as Mr. Soriano put it, \u201cwas dying to carve.\u201d Then skinny, Mr. Soriano struggled to cut the heavy ham as he held it against his chest, as tradition dictated. \u201cIt used to hurt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He moved on to other delis and supermarkets, studying what went into a great ham. He trained under a master who deboned hams in little more than a minute with crescent knives so close to his own belly that Mr. Soriano thought the maestro would disembowel himself.<\/p>\n
Along the way, he met his wife, who was a supermarket cashier, had a son and a daughter and invested in better knives. When he landed a gig cutting at a swank event in downtown Madrid, he was nearly turned away. \u201cHe looked like a Hell\u2019s Angel,\u201d said Jorge D\u00e1vila, who ran the event and helped connect Mr. Soriano to Joselito.<\/p>\n
Over the next 11 years, Mr. Soriano rose up the Joselito ranks. His boss, Jos\u00e9 G\u00f3mez, whose family has owned Joselito for six generations, said that in addition to knowing his way around a ham, Mr. Soriano \u201cknew how to behave\u201d with exclusive clients.<\/p>\n
Mr. G\u00f3mez wore a cap to the open that read \u201cJam\u00f3n\u201d and a red lapel pin displaying a pig\u2019s nose. He, like Mr. Soriano, spoke of ham with reverence. He explained that, \u201clike water,\u201d cured ham could be consumed \u201cin every moment of the day\u201d and that the company had set up a lab to better understand the conditions for making prime ham. They had compiled the information into a database called Pig Data. \u201cThe name,\u201d he said, \u201cwas mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Jannik Sinner, the world\u2019s top tennis player, got ready to take center court, Mr. Soriano also suited up. Wearing red Joselito-sponsored shoes reserved for the company\u2019s top talent, the carver went to rally his troops.<\/p>\n
\u201cA ham gets finished, we clean another!\u201d he said, preparing the group for a day of nonstop hustle. \u201cLet\u2019s do this!\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon after, he joined his team in a corner of a vast kitchen. As he unloaded heavy hams out of cardboard boxes, he listed the toll that carving had taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree hernias,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a bad elbow, a bad shoulder, my back.\u201d But his form had improved with age, he said, something he tried to impart to the prot\u00e9g\u00e9s around him. \u201cDon\u2019t force your posture,\u201d he said, checking his watch and fastening the black hoof of a pork leg into the vice of a ham stand. \u201cGet comfortable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He unrolled his knife bag and revealed a torturer\u2019s smorgasbord of blades, some worn to a needle after 15 years of slicing and sharpening. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese right now,\u201d he said, \u201care for war.\u201d<\/p>\n
He began removing the dark rind of the ham as if stripping bark from a tree, and then slid a blade through a glistening layer of fat as if it were warm butter. He then went to put on his ironed white chef\u2019s jacket. Shortly before 1 p.m., he stood in ready position before the Joselito stand, waiting for the doors to open. When they did, hundreds of pass-holders burst in, seemingly all hungry for ham.<\/p>\n
For the next hour, he sliced furiously.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try not to lift my head so I don\u2019t see the line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When only bones rested on the table, he offered an apologetic shrug to a latecomer. Mr. Soriano rolled up his knives and walked back to the lockers to put on a suit jacket to schmooze the high rollers in the dining rooms. He didn\u2019t seem thrilled about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m more into carving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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