bacon-msg - 2/16/08 Medieval bacon. NOTE: See also the files: pork-msg, ham-msg, cooking-oils-msg, butter-msg, larding-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ 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 <the end> Edited by Mark S. Harris bacon-msg 2 of 2