First of all is that what you call it? Streaky bacon.
Anyway, I once read that when in doubt order a BLT sandwich. The reasoning was that it is hard to screw up a BLT. So around 10 years ago, my wife and I had a few hours lay over in Madrid. We caught a bus downtown and saw the sights. We also had lunch. There were only two things we recognized on the menu: a BLT and a hamburger. I ordered the hamburger and suggested she get the BLT. When it came we weren’t sure whether she should eat it because the bacon did not appear to be cooked. Since she was very hungry she ate it and thereafter would tell the story of the uncooked bacon in Madrid.
Recently we were in Amsterdam, again with time to kill. For lunch one day we split a BLT and again the bacon was what we considered to be almost uncooked.
I can understand a difference in taste; sauteed rather than fried, but isn’t it dangerous to not cook it more?
Odd. Streaky bacon should always be cooked. As you were in spain, was it perhaps jamón serrano (raw ham)? I remember on a school trip to France ordering a ham sandwich and getting a baguette stuffed with raw ham. Shudder. I like my meat well cooked, thanks all the same…
I too suspect you were eating raw ham. Which, though not cooked, is preserved in other ways (smoked), hence isn’t a health hazard. The above mentionned “Serrano” is one of the best, but there are many others, like “Bayonne” in france, or “Parma” in Italy. All are very significantly more costly than ordinary cooked ham.
Upon rereading your, post, maybe I’m wrong since you seem to say the “bacon” was almost uncooked, and I don’t think raw ham is ever served cooked, even barely so.
As far as I know, smoked bacon, ham, and the such do not need to be cooked. I normally do not cook my smoked meats. Bacon I usually will, but not always. If you have no problem eating uncooked prosciutto (which is a salt-cured raw Italian ham), I don’t see why you would have a problem eating salt-cured and smoked bacon. I almost never cook ham…I don’t see the point.
‘Streaky bacon’ is the term used here for American-style bacon, i.e. bacon with lines of fat running through it, cut from pork bellies. The leaner back bacon, similar to what is known as ‘Canadian bacon’ in the US, is the more popular cut here.
Could this just be a difference between European and American definitions of ‘cooked’ when it comes to bacon?
From what I’ve seen, the default way bacon is served in the US is crispy. Here, it tends to be served while still meaty and chewy - unless you ask for it to be crispy.
It’s still cooked. It’s been in a pan and been fried and all that. It’s just not as cooked as you’re used to.
It could have been the oil on the bacon or bread that made you sick. I got a BLT once in Greece (hint: never order non-Greek food in Greece) and got that dopey Canadian bacon on it. But they toasted the bread on a oil covered grill, and the oil smelled hideous. I sat there and sipped my three drachma Coca Cola and watched my friends eat their BLT. One got three bites and stopped, one got one and stopped. Both were sick that night.
Not that I am a fussy eater - once, in Bodrum, I had a souvlaki cooked over an iron skillet, heated by an actelyne torch - it was one of those popular lunch - auto repair shop stands. Not bad - done quickly, and the actelyne added a certain manly tang to the meal.
A buddy of mine had a German fellow as a roommate, and he told me that he (the German) likes to make sandwiches with RAW bacon. I have no idea if it’s a cultural thing or just something this one guy likes.
I’ve been living in Germany since 1988, and as a general thing I find that bacon is no where near crispy when served. Even the bacon in the Burger King cheeseburgers is still squishy. A sandwich shop I used to go to in Wiesbaden made BLTs, and the bacon was always squishy.
As for your roommate eating raw bacon - well, I had a cousin in south Louisiana who did, too. We’d go crawfishing, and he’d eat half the bait himself. Just to say that eating raw bacon isn’t just a German thing.
Germans do one thing though that I can’t live with. They spread raw ground meat (a mix of pork and beef) mixed with onions, salt, and some pepper on rolls and eat. The meat stuff is called mettwurst. Wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole - but you can buy a roll with mettwurst in any butcher shop and quite often at the gas station (if the gas station happens to sell sandwiches, which is itself not all that common.)
Sorry about the hijack, but is this really how Americans dine abroad? You’re in Spain and you go out for a BLT and a hamburger, forsooth. And then you post on the SDMB because it wasn’t prepared the way you’re used to. And you make sure to imply that Europeans are inept enough to undercook their food. I’m sorry to say that at best you’re reinforcing a rather crude and silly cultural stereotype.
Not this American, anyway. Only ate in a McDonald’s abroad once - and that was at the urging of my Russian friend in Moscow, who quite logically pointed out that it was the only thing open at that hour unless I wanted to go to a fancy-schmancy Russian place, pay $100, and deal with a zillion courses plus vodka and zakuski* when all I really wanted was a quick bite. (Combination of jet lag and White Nights completely screwed up both my brain and stomach, so by the time I realized it had been 14 hours since I’d eaten anything, it was 11 pm.)
So he dragged me into McDonald’s, where my historian friend, employee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the History of Science and Technology, got into an argument with the cashier because he wanted the Happy Meal with the helicopter in it. It was quite surreal.
So no, not all of us do that. Most of us who actually enjoy traveling love all the new experiences that come with it, particularly new and exciting local food.
The mettwurst I’ve seen is eaten uncooked, but it’s cured and smoked. Beef tartare is a little more “raw” in this regard. Do people usually cook their smoked sausage? Natural (unsmoked) sausages I always heat, but smoked sausage I usually eat as is. Pepperoni isn’t cooked (unless you cook it yourself), salami isn’t cooked. Mettwurst isn’t dried (as much) as these others, so it does look a bit more disgusting, but it generally won’t pose a health problem.
If you get really technical, Mett is the raw thing that Mort Furd describes. Mettwurst is the smoked version of the same thing for better shelf life. I’d say that people don’t really keep those apart, but an authentic Mettbrötchen ("‘Mett’ roll") is indeed prepared with raw Mett, or “pig marmelade” as people call it. That’s why it should be consumed on the same day and is often offered as a snack.
Well, some Americans, perhaps. Note that the OP stated they only recognized two items on the menu, so perhaps their Spanish language skills and/or culinary knowledge were poor and they didn’t want to risk getting something considered inedible by their tastes.
Most Americans (from what I’ve seen) also have it pretty much drilled into their heads that pork must be cooked well-done, due to trichinosis fears. My husband and his parents traveled to Italy several years back and ordered a dish that appeared to be medium rare to rare-cooked veal. Upon questioning the waiter, it turned out to be pork. They were scared and called the CDC, but were told that this is not a common parasite in Italian pigs and that they almost certainly had no cause for alarm. Comparatively recently, the rate of infection in the US has gone down in pigs to the point where it isn’t much of an issue, but most people here were raised with the notion that you could get this horrible parasite if you didn’t cook pork to well-done, and that fear tends to stay with you even if you do know about the lack of risk. (In fact, the URL I gave points out that it could be present in beef and these days wild game is the big risk, which I suspect few people know about.)
As a vegetarian, I try to err on the side of caution when ordering food in a different country - but I also learn important phrases like “I am a vegetarian,” “Is there chicken broth in this soup?” and so forth.
I traveled a lot in my last job. Portugal, Spain, Poland, Cyprus, part of what used to be Jugoslavia. I ate in normal, local restaurants as much as possible. As Eva Luna mentioned, though, sometimes McDondald’s is the only thing open - or the only place close by or the only place cheap enough. And once in a while, because the local guy you work with has been dragging you into the local equivalent of greasy spoon diners and you need something that doesn’t make any demands on your digestion.
Cheap can be real important once in a while. The best example that comes to mind was a trip to Lissabon. I had to extend my stay by one day because the job wasn’t finished. No problem. I had my ATM card along, so I just went to the next machine to pick up some cash for taxi ride back to the hotel, some supper, and for the taxi to the airport in the morning. Bad news. My card has been locked out. I count what’s left in my pocket, and figure out how much I’ll need for the taxi in the morning, and how much the hotel is going to cost. I walk back to the hotel dragging my tools and my suitcase, and talk the guy at the desk into giving me a low rate on a room. Take enough for the taxi out of what was left, and I’ve got just enough for a burger and a coke at the McD’s down the street. It is also late in the evening, and most smaller places are closed - so like Eva Luna its McD’s or go hungry.
Another time on Cyprus I was having to spend too much time with one of the locals who had really bad taste in food. He kept dragging me and the other guys I was down there with into these places that made what he called the national dish of Cyprus. This is meat (goat, I think) that has been slow roasted for several days. No spices or anything, at least not in the places he took us. Nasty, greasy, overdone goat meat. After a couple of days of meals like this, the other guys and I made up an excuse to get away from him at lunch time and we pigged out at McD’s. That night, though, we hunted up a really GOOD restaurant and had one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten at a nice little restaurant that tourists don’t normally find. I also found one of my all time favorite wines. 1984 Othello red wine bottled by Keo. Ummmm. We also had a really good time that night - it was the owner’s name day, and he threw a cool party.
The other thing that makes McD’s attractive in a foreign country is time. You’ve got half an hour while waiting on a flight or a train and you need to get something to eat in that time. McD’s right over there with calories to go, or a local restaurant way the hell and gone over there and it’s a sit down place where they cook each meal by order. Sorry. McD’s wins.
I’ve had some really wonderful meals in all kinds of places, and I’ve eaten cheap, non-demanding, fast food in just about every country I’ve been in because sometimes it just works out that way. I’ve also eaten nasty stuff in high priced restaurants where I’d have gotten up and left if I hadn’t been with my boss and one of our customers. Good food and bad food is EVERYWHERE.
Well, phooey. I forgot a part about the Lissabon story. I got home and found a new ATM card wating for me, along with the new PIN and a letter explaining that the bank had changed the cards and PINs because they had a security problem. The card came in the day I went to Lissabon, the letter the next day, and the new PIN apparently on the same day I got back. The firtst thing I did on the next business day was go to the bank and give 'em hell for changing my card while I was traveling - and I applied for a credit card.
