Place of origin | Canada |
---|---|
Region or state | Southern Ontario |
Associated cuisine | Cuisine of Canada |
Main ingredients | Pork loin |
157 kcal (657 kJ) [1] | |
Peameal bacon (also known as cornmeal bacon) is a wet-cured, unsmoked back bacon made from trimmed lean boneless pork loin rolled in cornmeal. It is found mainly in Ontario. Toronto pork packer William Davies, who came to Canada from England in 1854, is credited with its development. [2] [3]
The name "peameal bacon" derives from the historic practice of rolling the cured and trimmed boneless loin in dried and ground yellow peas to extend shelf life. Since the end of World War I, it has been rolled in ground yellow cornmeal.
Peameal bacon sandwiches, consisting of cooked peameal bacon on a Kaiser roll and sometimes topped with mustard or other toppings, are often considered a signature dish of Toronto, particularly from Toronto's St. Lawrence Market. [4]
Peameal bacon is a type of unsmoked back bacon. It is made from centre-cut pork loin, trimmed of fat, wet-cured in a salt-and-sugar brine and rolled in cornmeal. [5] It can be sliced and cooked on a grill, griddled or fried; alternately, it can be roasted, then sliced and served. [6] The brining process makes it nearly impossible to overcook. [7] The low fat content keeps it juicy, and the cornmeal gives it a crispy edge. [8]
Cooked peameal bacon has a mild salty-sweet flavour and tastes more like fresh ham (when compared to smoked back bacon or side bacon). [6] The cooked slices have been described as resembling small pork cutlets. [9] It is eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner, [8] served in slices or as an ingredient in a pork dish. [6]
The name 'peameal' comes from the dried yellow peas that were ground into meal and packed around the meat to preserve it in the Victorian era. This has since been replaced by cornmeal, but the original name remains. [6] [8] Peameal bacon is rarely found outside of Southern Ontario, [10] [11] and is often simply referred to as "back bacon". Similarly, a peameal bacon sandwich is often called "back bacon on a bun". [12] [13]
Some Americans refer to peameal bacon as 'Canadian bacon'. However, 'Canadian-style bacon' or 'Canadian back bacon' are terms used by the U.S.-based North American Meat Institute for an American style of smoked back bacon. [10] [6] This may be sold in U.S. supermarkets as 'Canadian bacon', but is not Canadian. [6] [7] 'American bacon' is a U.S. term for side bacon (also known as streaky bacon). [10]
The origins of peameal bacon have not been firmly established. Curing pork with brine has been practised for centuries, in many parts of the world. [7] One such process was the Wiltshire cure used in England from 1765 or earlier. [14] [lower-alpha 1] Peameal bacon has been linked to pork packer William Davies and the Toronto-based William Davies Company, though it is uncertain if Davies, an employee, invented the process, or if the company otherwise acquired it. [16] Davies immigrated to Canada from Britain in 1854, and set up a shop in Toronto's St. Lawrence Market. [9]
According to Toronto's oral history, [7] Davies sent a side of brine-cured pork loins to relatives in England. To help preserve this shipment, he packed it in ground yellow peas. [17] [6] This was well received, and Davies continued rolling cured loins in peameal to extend shelf life. [10] The William Davies Company expanded, forming Canada's first major chain of food stores, [2] [18] and becoming the largest pork exporter in the British Empire. [17] By the early 1900s, the company's Front Street plant processed nearly half a million hogs per year. This contributed to Toronto's longstanding nickname of "Hogtown". [7] [8] Following World War I, cornmeal replaced the peameal crust, due to the former's availability and improved refrigeration practices. [6]
In the 1960s, customers of Joe Homer's St. Lawrence Market butcher shop opted for the centre cut of cured peameal loins, leaving him with the ends. Homer and Elso Biancolin, who ran a bakery shop at the market, sliced and fried the bacon ends and sold them on buns. Biancolin's sons, Robert and Maurice, expanded the family's Carousel Bakery during the market's 1977 renovation, and their featured peameal bacon sandwich on a fresh Kaiser roll received national and international attention from food critics and TV chefs. [5]
The Carousel Bakery's peameal bacon sandwich is simple, without complicated sauces, toppings or layers. It is composed of 1⁄8-inch (3.2 mm) slices of peameal bacon cooked on a griddle long enough to crisp, drizzled with honey mustard, served on a soft fresh roll. There are options to add an egg or side bacon. [9]
It was served at the inaugural Canadian Comedy Awards in 2000. [19] In 2016, the peameal bacon sandwich was named Toronto's signature dish. This was announced by Mayor John Tory at a local food festival with several versions offered. [20] [21] [22] Peameal bacon sandwiches were included in a wager between Tory and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf during the 2019 NBA Finals. [23]
Because peameal bacon is lean, it compares favourably to side bacon and is less processed than turkey bacon. While turkey bacon has a healthier image, popular brands have higher sodium and carbohydrates from added corn syrup. Nutritionist Theresa Albert compared 100-gram (3.5 oz) samples (about 4 slices of side bacon or turkey bacon, and 2 thick slices of peameal bacon): [1]
In 2018, a laboratory analysis was conducted on Carousel Bakery's 241-gram (0.531 lb) peameal bacon sandwich. It found the sandwich to have 499 calories, 2,520 mg of sodium, 49 g of carbohydrates, 8 g of fat, and 57 g of protein. Dietitian Shannon Crocker felt the calories and protein would make it a satisfying meal, but the sodium was 10% above the maximum recommended daily limit. [24]
Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking. As a processed meat, the term "ham" includes both whole cuts of meat and ones that have been mechanically formed.
Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish, used as a central ingredient, or as a flavouring or accent.
A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders.
A BLT is a type of sandwich, named for the initials of its primary ingredients, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. It can be made with varying recipes according to personal preference. Simple variants include using different types of lettuce or tomato, toasting or not, or adding mayonnaise. More pronounced variants can include using turkey bacon or tofu in place of bacon, or removing the lettuce entirely.
Braunschweiger is a type of sausage. The type of sausage the term refers to varies by region. In the German language, Braunschweiger is the demonym for people from Brunswick, but under German food law refers to a variety of mettwurst. In Austria, Braunschweiger is known as a type of parboiled sausage (Brühwurst), while American Braunschweiger is often confused with liverwurst.
Mămăligă is a porridge made out of yellow maize flour, traditional in Romania, Moldova, Western Ukraine and among Poles in Ukraine, the Black Sea regions of Georgia and Turkey, and Thessaly and Phthiotis, in Greece. It is traditional also in Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Brazil, with the name polenta.
Back bacon is a cut of bacon that includes the pork loin from the back of the pig. It may also include a portion of the pork belly in the same cut. It is much leaner than side bacon made only from the pork belly. Back bacon is derived from the same cut used for pork chops. It is the most common cut of bacon used in British and Irish cuisine, where both smoked and unsmoked varieties of bacon are found.
Pancetta is a salt-cured pork belly meat, product in a category known as salume. In Italy, it is often used to add depth to soups and pastas.
A bacon sandwich is a sandwich of cooked bacon between bread that is optionally spread with butter, and may be seasoned with ketchup or brown sauce. It is generally served hot. In some establishments the sandwich will be made from bread toasted on only one side, while other establishments serve it on the same roll as is used for hamburgers.
Salo or slanina is an Eastern European food consisting of cured slabs of pork subcutaneous fat with or without skin and with or without layers of meat. It is commonly eaten and known under different names across Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and is traditional to multiple national cuisines in the region. It is usually dry salt or brine cured. The East Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian variety is sometimes treated with paprika or other seasonings, while the South and West Slavic version is often smoked.
Lean Cuisine is a brand of frozen entrées and dinners sold in the United States by Nestlé, and in Australia by Vesco. The brand began as low-fat, low-calorie versions of Stouffer's products. Today, Lean Cuisine includes traditional dinners, ethnic dishes, pizzas, whole-grain Spa Cuisine entreés, and panini. The headquarters of Lean Cuisine in the United States is located in Solon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
William Davies Company was a pork processing and packing company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At one time, it was the largest pork packer in the British Empire, and it operated Canada's first major chain of food stores. One of Toronto's longstanding nicknames, "Hogtown", is attributable to the millions of pigs processed annually by the William Davies Company.
Bacon and cabbage is a dish traditionally associated with Ireland. The dish consists of sliced back bacon boiled with cabbage and potatoes. Smoked bacon is sometimes used.
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig. It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE.
A peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB&J) consists of peanut butter and fruit preserves—jelly—spread on bread. The sandwich may be open-faced, made of a single slice of bread folded over, or made using two slices of bread. The sandwich is popular in the United States, especially among children; a 2002 survey showed the average American will eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before graduating from high school. There are many variations of the sandwich, starting with the basic peanut butter sandwich or jam sandwich.
Turkey bacon is a meat prepared from chopped, formed, cured, and smoked turkey, commonly marketed as a low-fat alternative to pork bacon; it may also be used as a substitute for bacon where religious dietary laws forbid the consumption of pork products.
The Bacon Cookbook: More than 150 Recipes from Around the World for Everyone's Favorite Food is a cookbook on bacon by James Villas. It was published by Wiley in 2007. Villas is a former food editor for Town & Country magazine, and The Bacon Cookbook is his 15th book on food. He notes on the book's jacket that he was "beguiled by bacon since he was a boy." He describes the appeal of bacon in the book's preface, and in the introduction recounts the history of the product, as well as its variations from different locations internationally. Chapters are structured by type of recipe and food course, and in total the book includes 168 recipes.
Speck can refer to a number of European cured pork products, typically salted and air-cured and often lightly smoked but not cooked. In Germany, speck is pickled pork fat with or without some meat in it. Throughout much of the rest of Europe and parts of the English-speaking culinary world, speck often refers to South Tyrolean speck, a type of Italian smoked ham. The term "speck" became part of popular parlance only in the eighteenth century and replaced the older term "bachen", a cognate of "bacon".