bacon-msg - 2/20/13
Medieval bacon.
NOTE: See also the files: pork-msg, ham-msg, cooking-oils-msg, butter-msg, larding-msg.
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Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 11:12:19 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Real bacon
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Also sprach Sharon Gordon:
> Would people who have experience with real bacon (as different from the
> typical American breakfast slices or UK rashers of bacon) describe how it
> looks and tastes? Also how does it differ in cooking? If you wanted a
> butcher to give you some, how would you ask for it?
We may need to answer this in stages, with people throwing out sort
of feeler questions at various times to find out what you really want
to know, because I'm not sure what you mean by "real" in this case.
Originally, in English, bacon was virtually any cured hogmeat other
than ham. Today, what you see most often is streaky or belly bacon,
or back bacon, which comes from the loin of the hog. Then there's a
sort of grey area of cuts treated like ham but actually more like
bacon: things like Bath Chaps (essentially a hammish sort of thing
made from the boned-out jowl), etc.
The primary difference between the typical packaged, pre-sliced
American belly bacon and what I suspect you mean when you say its
"real" equivalent, is that the stuff in clear plastic packets with
the little window to show you the one viable streak of muscle meat in
it, is that water is added. This affects not only the weight, but
also the texture and its behavior in cooking. I'd suspect that the
really industrial/commercial stuff has more sugar in the cure, which,
when combined with the added water, leads to a greater amount of
sticky, burny juices in the bottom of your pan, the kind of thing
that can make it tough to fry eggs in the same pan ;-).
I would further say, speaking in my official capacity as Arbiter of
all things, that realness is not a function of the cut; you can get
good, slab bacon of the American sort (it may or may not have a rind
on it, and you may or may not choose to remove it, either before or
after slicing) at places like butcher shops, smokehouses, farmers'
markets, etc. It's called "slab bacon". Back bacon, the stuff made
from the loin, is sometimes known as English or Irish bacon,
especially when pre-sliced and packaged, but when whole, is often
called boiling bacon, because a common way to eat it is boiled with
cabbage or other greens (corned beef and cabbage is actually, I
understand, the American poor substitute).
Some butchers will also sell what they call cured or smoked pork
loin, which you can buy in a hunk by the pound, or have the butcher
slice to use as rashers.
Canadian Bacon, by the way, is supposed to be identical to back
bacon, until someone decided to cut off the best part of it and use
it for something else, leaving behind a nearly-fat-free eye of the
loin. In Canada, though, I believe this heresy is not practiced; it's
just "bacon", and functionally identical to belly or back bacon. I
guess it's like English Muffins in England: they do have them, but
don't bother calling them English. Duh! ;-)
Adamantius
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:05:22 +0200
From: "Susanne Mayer" <susanne.mayer5 at chello.at>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Bacon
To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
I looked up the german Text, and also checked the other sausage recipes.
Speck/bacon in modern German is ususally smoked and salted bacon from
different parts of the pig like the belly (more fat, less meat) or made from
the roast (more meat and lean). Or white bacon which is like lardo only fat
(but it usually stated white bacon if it should be used).
If you use fresh pork belly you will get a different taste as the bacon does
impart a salty, lightly smoked flavor.
But it could also be green bacon: raw and not smoked.
So I would try it with different sorts and adjust it to my taste.
And I did find a modern version which resembles the welser recipe calling
either for bacon or belly and lean pork and lean beef.
500g pork 300g beef and 200g bacon or belly. Grobe Bauernbratwurst
http://www.rezeptesammlung.net/einkochen_wurst.htm
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon
Katharina
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 07:05:32 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] finding bacon recipes was bacon
It's pretty easy to find bacon recipes.
By going to www.medievalcookery.com and going to the Medieval Cookbook
Search, you can easily search for a selection of bacon recipes from
the indexed sources.
A search quickly turns up several.
http://www.medievalcookery.com/cgi/search.pl?term=bacon&;file=all
You'll find recipes listed like:
This is an excerpt from A Book of Cookrye
(England, 1591)
The original source can be found at Mark and Jane Waks' website
Take your Bacon and boyle it, and stuffe it with Parcely and Sage, and
yolks of hard Egges, and when it is boyled, stuffe it and let it boyle
againe, season it with Pepper, cloves and mace, whole cloves stick
fast in, so then lay it in your paste with salt butter.
Lots of German recipes
Johnnae
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:42:07 +0100
From: "Susanne Mayer" <susanne.mayer5 at chello.at>
To: <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Speck
Speck is generic for all sorts of bacon all from pigs: gru:ner Speck is
just salted and not smoked resembling pancetta (almost pure fat) and or
Lardo (pure fat), Speck made from the leg bones is resembling prosciutto,
here also the degrees of smoking varys and the "air-time" for drying the
smoked hams, bauchspeck is made from the sides and resembles berakfast bacon
but is smoked / cured. more layers of fat and meat. Ossocollo is leg meat
deboned and "rolled" into a piece and then smoked and cured.
Kareespeck is made from the rib pieces, a bit of fat and much meat,...
This list is in no way complete,..., I am in the lucky position to have
relatives owning a farm and slaughtering their own pigs twice a Year for
smoked sausages, Salami, and all sorts of bacon,...
Regards Katharina
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:16:42 -0800
From: K C Francis <katiracook at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Speck
I can get speck at my local Whole Foods. I have it sliced very thin and serve as part of a cold plate. I have also purchased it at AG Ferrari Foods for the same purpose. It looks very like prosciutto. Check out Google using images.
Katira
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:43:53 -0800
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at jeffnet.org>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Bacon news
On 1/26/2012 3:54 AM, Johnna Holloway wrote:
<<< In case you haven't heard the news, Bacon has a new or maybe it's just
a return to a former use.
"Laypeople have long known that bacon can cure innumerable ailments:
depression, unwanted thinness, tastelessness of lentil. And new
research suggests that the cured meat has medical applications that
have nothing to do with the heart and stomach. It seems that bacon --
used in a very unusual way -- is one of the best cures out there for a
bloody nose."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/bacon-nosebleed_n_1231092.html
Johnnae >>>
Anthimus claims that the Franks eat bacon raw, and that accounts for
their good health.
No way could I choke it down raw. That must account for my condition.
Liutgard
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2012 21:21:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Tre <trekatz at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fwd: [Ansteorra] Fwd: Balson's Bangers at
COSTCO!! OT English bacon
Bacon here in Britain is generally "Back Bacon", which is the similar to "Canadian Bacon". You can get streaky bacon over here, but it doesn't seem quite the same. The flavor is different than ham, but a lightly smoked ham might work as a substitute as someone else suggested. A better substitute would be if you could get Canadian Bacon.
Also, you can buy back bacon either smoked or unsmoked. I don't know how much of a difference the smoked flavor would make in your recipes.
Ceara
(an American currently living in Britain.)
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