Speck

For other uses, see Speck (disambiguation).

Speck Alto Adige PGI – South Tyrolean speck

Smoked speck

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 [sic] is bacon. Throughout much of the rest of Europe and parts of the English-speaking culinary world, speck is usually 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 .^{[ citation needed ]}

Regional varieties

There are a number of regional varieties of speck, including:

• Bacon, e.g. Frühstücksspeck ("breakfast speck") in Germany
• Gailtaler speck from Austria, with PGI status, which has been made since the 15th century in the Gail Valley ("Gailtal") in Carinthia ^[1]
• Schinkenspeck, German "ham bacon", typically made from a flat cut of ham with fat along one side resembling bacon, and traditionally soaked for several days in brine with juniper berries and peppercorn
• Speck Sauris PGI, from Sauris, Friuli, Italy
• Speck Alto Adige PGI, from South Tyrol, Italy
• Tyrolean speck from Austria's Tyrol region, which has PGI status, and has been made since at least the 15th century ^[2]

Jewish deli speck

In Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, in which bacon (like all pork) is forbidden as unkosher, "speck" commonly refers to the subcutaneous fat on a brisket of beef. It is a particular speciality of delis serving Montreal-style smoked meat, where slices of the fatty cut are served in sandwiches on rye bread with mustard, sometimes in combination with other, leaner cuts. ^[3]

See also

• Food portal

• List of dried foods
• List of smoked foods

References

1. Lebensmittelnet.at - Gailtaler Speck (accessed 9 January 2008)
2. Austria Tourist Info - Tirol(German) (accessed 9 January 2008)
3. "A Mission To Save Real Jewish Delis, A Dying Breed". All Things Considered. 13 October 2009. NPR.