The soup? Why?
It was piccallili. Poor Dr. Herriott cleaned out the entire jar so he could choke down the cold fat, with a nice breading on the side, and not offend the dear old farmer couple.
Turned out, after this event, he lost his taste for piccallili too.
Now, does some UK Doper want to explain to this Yank exactly what piccallili is? Is it like the relish we spread on hot dogs?
:smack:
I didn’t see Tapioca’s link.
It was a bit oily…
Picalilli is a mixture of pickled vegetables, mainly onions and cauliflower, in an English mustard and vinegar sauce. It’s so strong that it instantly clears your sinuses, makes your eyes water, and is absolutely fantastic with cheese and ham.
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about salo a few years back. It sounded way worse than what’s being described here. After all, spreading it on bread doesn’t sound much different to me than buttering bread. The WSJ article featured several people people ate the stuff solo (no pun intended). It was wrapped in newspaper to keep the fingers from getting greasy and people washed it down with vodka to cleanse the grease from the mouth and throat (though I suspect the vodka may have been necessary for an additional reason).
By the way, I know a woman from Hungary who swears that no Hungarian would ever, ever eat pig fat - so now I’m confused.
I tried a lot of new things while studying in Russia, but somehow managed to escape the salo. This was no mean feat when you are surrounded by a bunch of little old Siberian ladies in a small Siberian village; those women are tough, and you refuse food they offer you pretty much on pain of death. Thanksfully, they were distracted by one of my fellow students, a Mexican-American, who became quite jubilant upon spying the salo. “Chicharron!,” he exclaimed, “just like my grandma makes!” (It’s not exactly the same thing, but hey, I suppose when you are homesick and 13 time zones from Grandma, a random hunk of pig scrap is a random hunk of pig scrap.)
I think I disguised my otherwise empty hunk of bread with some raw onion. Phew! I’ve seen the chocolate-covered salo ad previously as well; can’t decide whether it’s real, or a practical joke.
Umm…you sure she’s Hungarian? Pig fat is abundant in Hungary. And I mean everywhere. Diets are slowly changing, but the characteristic flavor of Hungarian dishes is composed of pork lard, onions, and paprika. Hungary is a bacon lover’s dream—there’s something like a dozen or more varieties of it around, from the pure fat variety, to more meaty varieties. Some are smoked, some are not, some are seasoned with pepper or paprika, some are plain. Pigs are raised as much for their fat as for their meat. And, up until fairly recently (in the last 20 or 30 years), pretty much every household in Hungary had a lard pot to keep lard in or to conserve meat in lard. The typical old school farmer’s lunch is exactly what I described: a slab of pig fat (bread bacon), an onion, a loaf of bread and a sharp knife.
No Hungarian would ever eat pig fat. Wow. That’s like saying no Frenchman would ever drink wine.
Oh man, I used to have a lot of Ukrainian neighbors. My mother would help them out with taxes and government forms, and in return the old ladies would come out in their headscarves and thick socks and offer plate after flowery gold-etched plate of food. Huge piles of sausage and fat and just plain slabs of meat, with the occasional potato or cabbage thrown in.
And I was vegetarian.
You try refusing food from an old Ukrainian woman who doesn’t speak a world of English. I think I caved a few times.
Huh. So that’s what salo is. I knew it was pork something or other. I still want an interpreter to come with me to the Russian market one day.
Semi Hijack
What’s with all the honey? As I may have mentioned, the only supermarket within walking distance of my apartment is a Russian market (North east Philadelphia is filled with exSoviets). While many of the foods are very familiar to me (gefilte fish, blintzes, perogies, halvah, compote, herring in cream sauce) , some are strange (taragon soda for example). The sheer amount of honey, and the many varieties are bewildering. Today, I noticed honey in gallon jars. Unfortunately, the English labels simply list ingredients on any of the honeys as “pure honey”, and I don’t read or speak Russian.
And, just how prevalent is borscht? I’m still stunned that the Russian market has less borscht on the shelves than the Superfresh that closed a few years back (They even had a Manishewitz variety which had no solids, was sold in iced tea bottles, intended as a drink and named Borscht Belt). I’m not trying to stereotype. From what I know, much of what Americans consider Jewish food comes from that part of Europe. I always thought that borscht especially, was a Russian food. Am I missing vats of fresh borscht? Is it an untrue stereotype?
I dunno. The Slavs just seem to have a hard-on for honey. My Polish family always had several varieties of honey around the house. I’ve driven through the Bulgarian countryside where village after village sold their varied honeys. And whilst living in Hungary (which is not Slavic, so there goes my neat theory), you could get lime-blossom, wolf’s-milk, tansy phacelia, goldenrod, sunflower, fir, willow, “sweet dew”, and acacia honeys, among others.
As for borscht, there’s Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish (called barszcz)varieties. (The Polish being the solidless variety, usually served with meat or mushroom dumplings.) From what I noticed, there’s no shortage of borscht in Russia, but it’s something that most people would more likely make from scratch and not pick up in a jar. I certainly have never made borscht from a jar.
Wanna know where the expression “chewing the fat” comes from? In England, during the Great Depression, when the poor couldn’t afford any meat except abbatoir offcuts, eating gristly fat was a common source of protein - course, it took a while to go down, so it was common for unemployed men to stand around on street corners and chew the fat while shooting the breeze to pass the time.
While living in the Detroit area I encountered “American Borscht,” basically a beet and vegetable soup, often with beef chunks, served hot and without sour cream.
So how does this salo compare to the fatback eaten in the Southeast U.S.? Is it the same or similar? Lord knows, lard is no stranger to Dixie cuisine. I’ve used bread or rolls to sop up the juices left behind by the meat on my plate and gravy is of course mainly fat. But I just can’t see myself chowing down on a chunk of salted lard by itself.
I’ve heard that a popular breakfast food in Burgundy is to mix mashed potatoes with the drippings from sausage. That actually sounds pretty good to me.
I have that cookbook! My mom brought it back from Portugal for me, and I haven’t made a single recipe. There were also pictures from butchershops and fishmongers that were less than appetizing.
BrainGlutton !
Man I could kiss you !
I had no idea that Smith had a new Renko novel out and suddenly 2005 is of to a wonderful start 
I leave for Kyiv on Sunday for a month. I fully expect to eat Salo and will report back on my findings. As an aside, while trying to learn about the country I will be visiting, I learned that Kyiv has a huge salo appreciation day once a year, like a huge food festival celebrating it.
I picked up a Ukranian cookbook as well and saw that in addition to beets, mushrooms are also a very popular food there as well so I will hopefully be enjoying those (probably pickled due to it being winter) while I am there.
That’s what I wondered, too. Sounds like a chunkier version of fatback–excellent food, BTW, especially when placed inside a piping hot (US) biscuit.