You can smell it cooking in the kitchen

Bacon

As the smell of sizzling bacon at breakfast time moves around the house you can almost taste it.  It is delicious.

Bacon comes from the side, belly or back of the pig and it is often smoked, this is where it is placed in a smoky room to add flavour.  The smoke comes from slow burning hardwood dust such as oak.  This process is known as curing.  This process was used to preserve meat so food was available throughout the year.

A side of unsliced bacon is called a "flitch" and a slice of bacon is called a rasher.  Usually the skin is left on and this is called rind.  In the UK we call the bacon from the belly, streaky bacon and back bacon from the back of the pig.  In America back bacon is known as Canadian bacon but nobody is certain why?

In the UK we slice bacon up into strips and eat it in sandwiches, use it to add flavour to meat such as Turkey at Christmas or around chicken and it is also a key part of a traditional English breakfast.  In Europe it is normally used in cubes and these are called Lardons.  In Italy it is thinly sliced and served uncooked at the start of the meal, this is known as pancetta. 

Ham

Ham is the term used to describe a thigh or the rump of any animal that is used for meat.  However, it usually refers to pork, which is the meat that comes from pigs.  Sometimes the meat is served fresh but is usually smoked like bacon.  This can be done in two ways.  The first is dry curing where the ham is rubbed in a mixture containing salt and other ingredients and then dried and left to hang.  The second is a wet cure where the ham is injected with brine; this is a mixture of salt and water.

Ham can be treated and made into other products like Spam and luncheon meat.   Spam stands for spiced ham.  It is made from ham that is then compacted or pressed together hard and the put in a tin.

 

Date

6/5/2008