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. Regular bacon consumption is associated with increased mortality and other health concerns.
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.
Chorizo is a type of pork sausage originating from the Iberian Peninsula. It is made in many national and regional varieties in several countries on different continents. Some of these varieties are quite different from each other, occasionally leading to confusion or disagreements over the names and identities of the products in question.
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.
Samgyeopsal, samgyeopsal-gui, or grilled pork belly is a type of gui in Korean cuisine.
Pork belly or belly pork is a boneless, fatty cut of pork from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is particularly popular in American, British, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Hispanic, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisine.
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.
Chicharrón is a dish generally consisting of fried pork belly or fried pork rinds. Chicharrón may also be made from chicken, mutton, or beef.
Char siu is a Cantonese-style barbecued pork. Originating in Guangdong, it is eaten with rice, used as an ingredient for noodle dishes or in stir fries, and as a filling for cha siu bao or pineapple buns. Five-spice powder is the primary spice, honey or other sweeteners are used as a glaze, and the characteristic red color comes from the red yeast rice when made traditionally.
Salo or slanina is a European 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.
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.
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.
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. 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. Outside the United States, there is a longer culinary tradition: the cured, non-smoked Italian variant is called guanciale.
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. In the Netherlands and Flanders, in Dutch, spek means bacon. 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.
Pork rind is the culinary term for the skin of a pig. It can be used in many different ways.
Nilaga is a traditional meat stew or soup from the Philippines, made with boiled beef or pork mixed with various vegetables. It is typically eaten with white rice and is served with soy sauce, patis, labuyo chilis, and calamansi on the side.
