Pork jowl is a cut of pork from a pig's cheek. Different food traditions have used it as a fresh cut or as a cured pork product (with smoke and/or curing salt). As a cured and smoked meat in America, it is called jowl bacon or, especially in the Southern United States, hog jowl, joe bacon, or joe meat. In the US, hog jowl is a staple of soul food. [1] Outside the United States, there is a longer culinary tradition: the cured, non-smoked Italian variant is called guanciale. [2] [3]
Jowl bacon can be fried and eaten as a main course, similar to streaky bacon, such as in a traditional full English breakfast. Often, it is used as a seasoning for beans, black-eyed peas or cooked with leafy green vegetables such as collard greens or turnip greens in a traditional Southeastern meal. [4] [5]
Jowl meat may also be chopped and used as a garnish, similar to bacon bits, [6] or served in sandwich form. [7] Pork jowl can be used as a binding ingredient in pork liver sausages, such as liverwurst and braunschweiger.
A Southern US tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens with either pork jowls or fatback on New Year's Day to ensure prosperity throughout the new year goes back hundreds of years. [8] During the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), the peas were thought to represent wealth to the Southerners, while the Northern army considered the food to be fit as livestock feed only.[ citation needed ] Pigs (and by extension, pork products) were symbolic of "wealth and gluttony" and consuming jowls or fatback on New Year's Day guaranteed a good new year. [9]
Because pork jowl can be cured, like many other cuts of pork, it has been a traditional wintertime food as it is able to be stored for long periods of time without refrigeration.
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.
The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several subregions, including cuisine of Southeastern Native American tribes, Tidewater, Appalachian, Ozarks, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, African American cuisine and Floribbean, Spanish, French, British, and German cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread to other parts of the United States, influencing other types of American cuisine.
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. Regular bacon consumption is associated with increased mortality and other health concerns.
The black-eyed pea or black-eyed bean is a legume grown around the world for its medium-sized, edible bean. It is a subspecies of the cowpea, an Old World plant domesticated in Africa, and is sometimes simply called a cowpea.
A ham hock or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper nor the ankle or foot (trotter), but rather the extreme shank end of the leg bone.
Smoked meat is the result of a method of preparing red meat, white meat, and seafood which originated in the Paleolithic Era. Smoking adds flavor, improves the appearance of meat through the Maillard reaction, and when combined with curing it preserves the meat. When meat is cured then cold-smoked, the smoke adds phenols and other chemicals that have an antimicrobial effect on the meat. Hot smoking has less impact on preservation and is primarily used for taste and to slow-cook the meat. Interest in barbecue and smoking is on the rise worldwide.
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 pasta.
A lardon, also spelled lardoon, is a small strip or cube of fatty bacon, or pork fat, used in a wide variety of cuisines to flavor savory food and salads. In French cuisine, lardons are also used for larding, by threading them with a needle into meats that are to be braised or roasted. Lardons are not normally smoked, and they are made from pork that has been cured with salt.
Soup beans is a term common in the Southern United States, particularly the regions around the Appalachian Mountains. Soup beans are usually served with cornbread, greens, and potatoes and may be topped with raw chopped onions or ramps. Soup beans are considered a main course, but also serve as a side dish. In rural areas, where food was scarce during the winter, these dried beans were a staple food.
Salo is a Ukrainian food consisting of salt-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 Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. It is usually dry salt or brine cured. The East Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian variety may also be cured with paprika or other seasonings added, whereas the South and West Slavic version is often smoked.
Hoppin' John, also known as Carolina peas and rice, is a rice and beans dish of legendary origins associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. Similar dishes are found in regions with a significant African-origin demographic like Louisiana red beans and rice. The Carolina version is known for the addition of bacon and other kinds of pork.
Tocino is bacon in Spanish, typically made from the pork belly and often formed into cubes in Spain. In Caribbean countries, such as Puerto Rico and Cuba, tocino is made from pork fatback and is neither cured nor smoked but simply fried until very crunchy; it is then added to recipes, much like the way lardons are used in French cuisine. In the Philippines, tocino refers to sweetened and cured pork belly.
Salumi are Italian meat products typical of an antipasto, predominantly made from pork and cured. Salumi also include bresaola, which is made from beef, and some cooked products, such as mortadella and prosciutto.
Pig slaughter is the work of slaughtering domestic pigs to obtain pig meat (pork). It regularly happens as part of traditional and intensive pig farming, which is both a common economic activity as well as a traditional feast in some European and Asian countries.
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.
The cuts of pork are the different parts of the pig which are consumed as food by humans. The terminology and extent of each cut varies from country to country. There are between four and six primal cuts, which are the large parts in which the pig is first cut: the shoulder, loin, belly and leg. These are often sold wholesale, as are other parts of the pig with less meat, such as the head, feet and tail. Retail cuts are the specific cuts which are used to obtain different kinds of meat, such as tenderloin and ham. There are at least 25 Iberian pork cuts, including jamón.
Salt pork is salt-cured pork. It is usually prepared from pork belly, or, less commonly, fatback. Salt pork typically resembles uncut side bacon, but is fattier, being made from the lowest part of the belly, and saltier, as the cure is stronger and performed for longer, and never smoked. The fat on the meat is necessary for the curing process as it allows the salt to soak in and preserve the meat. Salt pork is made by layering salt and thin layers of meat, then dousing it in a brine mixture once the desired size has been reached.
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