I used to have it for breakfast almost every day when I was a kid. Now, once a year as a treat, and it is a very nice delicacy. I turned my step kids onto it and my neighbors as well.
Now I have to fry up 3-4 pounds of this salty wonderfulness the day before New Years, so that we have some meat to nosh on for the holiday.
Of course, black eyed peas and collards to go along with the fat back. Any one else enjoy this red neck treat?
Does lardo count? I have that as an appetizer every so often.
orgasmic shudder Mmmmmmmmm, fatback…
Have you looked at my “pig fat” thread from earlier today, BTW? If not, you might find the linked site interesting.
Wow, I truly never thought that fatback was known outside the south. But after doing a Wikipedia search on Lardo ( Rosemary sounds yum!), I find it goes into Lardo, Salo and beyond! Salo (food) - Wikipedia
Is the other stuff pure salt like our fatback? As in tongue burning salty?
Pretty pigs, but I don’t want to meet my meat. I’ve actually gone meat light because of my squeamishness about that. I eat meat maybe two, three times a month now, mostly special occasions like Christmas and the other big holidays. Like I said in the first post, I’ll do a few pounds of fatback for the family and neighbors for New Years Day, but I don’t want to think about where it really came from. I pretend it just magically and saltily appears the one time of the year I eat it anymore.
Other than fatback, most my other meat indulgences are organic or kosher. Too pricey to make it a regular treat.
But as much as I eat vegetarianishly, I dream in bacon and salt pork.
I wouldn’t say it’s tongue-burning salty, but yeah there’s a pretty high sodium content. I’ve typically had it shaved thin and melted onto good bread.
I saw some at the grocery store and bought it, but now I don’t know what to do with it. I tried frying some like bacon, but it was just too salty to eat like that. Besides putting it in other foods to add salt and fat, what do you do with it?
Is that one of those foodstuffs people just like because it disgusts other people?
Fatback is a traditional part of a meal of fish and brewis. I loath it, personally - I don’t even like bacon too fatty, eating pure fat is not in the cards - but, most people do have scrunchions with it.
I use it as a seasoning in peas or beans. I think Tengu’s “scrunchions” are what we would call “cracklin’s”. Those are cooked up in cornbread for “cracklin’ bread”.
That’s pretty much it, unless you want to make a version of cracklin’ cornbread, and it sounds like it might be to salty for you. Cracklin’ cornbread, like fried fatback, is pretty much an acquired taste.
It great for flavoring beans and turnip, mustard, collard greens or kale.
See post #7–get some good bread, slice the fatback thin, and put it in the toaster oven (or equivalent) so it kinda melts into the bread. Serve with cornichons or something else to cut the grease.
If you’re up for making homemade pizza, I’d be very tempted to try a pizza topped with waxy potatoes, onions, and fatback.