When the Underwood’s Ham Spread was gone from H-E-B this morning, my eye caught this product, which I had never seen before:
I’m thrown by this being called “bacon.” As y’all know American bacon is usually thin, fatty strips. How is this “bacon” not ham? What is the relationship between ham and bacon? This product is smoked, but does it also need to be cooked? Usually products like this will say somewhere on the package that it needs to be cooked. There are “safe handling” instructions for raw meat on the back of the package, so that was kind of a hint. It looked really good, so I thought I’d try it and then come here to see if anyone is familiar with this product.
Oh, thank you! I was kind of hoping for that. I got some nice cheese and a loaf of Martin’s Potato Bread, and I have Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard on hand, so there will be some sammwitches in my very near future.
I like the idea of it, I can see by the picture that it is not as lean than ham. Never noticed it in the store, but now I know about it and I like that. Thanks for raising my awareness @ThelmaLou .
Bacon is cured pork, usually pork belly but other cuts are used. The curing is in a brine, then smoking adds flavor. Traditionally smoking ham and bacon was a means of prevent infiltration by bugs and drying the meat so no refrigeration was needed. Jowl bacon is popular in some cultures, Canadian back bacon is well known, other cuts can be used and sometimes other meats. I’ve never had a form of bacon that wasn’t good, though not all as good as others.
Ham is a cut of meat from the leg. The belly is a cut of meat from the belly. Bellies thay are cured and/or smoked are sometimes called bacon but may have other names like guanciale or pancetta. Ham that is cured and/or smoked is sometimes called ham but may have other names like speck.
This stuff looks and is described very much like the tasty meat I was given every morning on our trip circling around Ireland. Every night was a different bed and breakfast. Each version of the full Irish breakfast was a little different, but the one constant was Irish-style bacon rashers.
Dumb question: do I need to cook this ham/bacon/stuff? Raw bacon slices look raw and one is not inclined to eat them without cooking. But this looks like ham.
Right now I have some slices in the air fryer with a sprinkle of brown sugar and mustard on top. I believe that will make an excellent sandwich.
I’ve had the Hempler’s shoulder bacon. Yes, it’s already cooked like American ham, so you could eat it cold out of the package. But it does have fatty streaks that wouldn’t be pleasant eaten cold, so it’s best to fry it up. It’s extremely yum.
Hempler’s also makes Canadian-style bacon and sells it in big unsliced chunks, or at least they did the last time I was in Washington. It was the finest Canadian bacon I ever had, but they don’t sell it down here in California.
I’m really happy I found this product at the grocery store this morning and that I came here to get advice about it. My grocery store used to have a ham product, it was end slices and bits, that was so tasty. It tasted better than honey baked ham. And of course, because I liked it, they stopped carrying it. In fact, I had a conversation with the guy in the meat department about that, namely, the fact that when I like a product they stop carrying it, and he said the same thing happens to him and his wife. As soon as they like a product, bam! It’s immediately off the shelves. Anyway this stuff is as good as that ham was. So I’m very happy to have found it. And if others have access to it, I highly recommend it.
My English friends called American style pork belly bacon ‘streaky’ bacon. Other cuts may have the similar appearance of streaks so I don’t know if they were being that specific about it or might have applied it to other cuts. None that I had was even comparable to basic grocery store American bacon though my experience was limited to only a couple of hotel restaurants. Sadly some of our hotel restaurants serve greasy rubbery flavor-challenged bacon at breakfast leaving the impression with some visitors that American’s love for bacon is an insane delusion.
I’ve had another look at the OP’s link and at the bacon selection of the supermarket I use here. I’d never noticed before that what everyone here refers to as bacon the supermarket calls back bacon. What they call streaky bacon is definitely what I grew up with in the US. The OP’s bacon seems to be somewhere in between.
I’m a bit of a charcuterie doofus myself, and here’s how they break down:
Pork belly: American style/Streaky Bacon, Pancetta, “salt pork”
Pork Loin: Canadian/Peameal Bacon, British/Irish Bacon
Pork cheek: Guanciale
Pork hind leg: Ham in its various incarnations, Prosciutto(crudo & cotto), most Speck, Serrano, Iberico, etc.
Pork shoulder: Capicola/coppa, Tasso, and other cured pork shoulder items that are made in various regions.
Salami, pepperoni, mortadella, soppresata, etc. are actually all cured and dried sausages made from all sorts of pork cuts.
American style ham is cured and smoked, and is either left moist (city hams), or dried (country hams).
It does look Canadian bacon-y.