I agree, I have a slab of pork belly that is currently going to be turned into char siu marinating in the fridge. I just really really want that flavor profile and the particular mouthfeel of the slow cooked fat and meat … once cooked a 2 kilo slab will last me a fair amount of time [I portion it out and vacuseal it and keep it in the freezer.]
Actually what I could really go for right now is tuscan lardo on a fresh hot out of the oven sourdough roll … sob <looks at her oatmeal and sighs> I wonder if I can get my butcher to find me a trustworthy pig …
One of the guys at work came up with something recently. His father told him that he and his mates used to buy a pile of char sui pork from the local Chinese place and a bag of white bread rolls and have them for lunch. We tried it once and do it regularly. One guy goes to the Chinese BBQ place and gets the BBQ pork and someone else goes to the Japanese bakery for the bread rolls.
You rip off a piece of bread roll, stuff it with pork (and a slice of scallion if we get them), dip it in the sauce they provide and devour it. Awesome. Even better than steamed BBQ pork buns.
There is more variety among bird meat (fowl?) than there are other categories such as beef and pork. You have chicken, turkey, quail, pheasant and so on; each has a distinct flavor and/or texture so it wouldn’t make sense to lump them together.
This is purely anecdotal, but I recall my great-grandfathers referring to calves as “veals.” But they also often referred to cows as “beeves” so who knows what was up with their crazy dialect. (rural Central NY. They both died in the early 70s)
Although the extent of this phenomenon in English obviously is a result of the Norman conquest, this Italian example, the Spanish ones in Colibri’s staff report, and my experience with (some) Scandinavian languages show that using different names for the meat and the animal isn’t unusual (at least in Germanic and Romance languages). Interestingly enough it seems to me (although this may be bias) that it’s more pronounced in Norwegian, with an ever so slight parallel to the history of English with Danish being the language of the elite here for about 400 years.
Yeah, that’s what I came here to say : the origin of the English dichotomy is cultural French invasion following the *actual *French invasion ; yet for some reason we do it too in some cases. But not all, that would be too easy.
Veal is veal whether it’s got 4 legs or a side of fries, but pork meat is “porc” while the animal is more often than not referred to as “cochon”. Beef is “boeuf” whether the bull was actually castrated at any point, or was a cow. Chicken is “poulet”, but if it still clucks it’s a “poule” or a “coq” - unless the cock doesn’t have one any more in which case both the animal and the dish become “chapon”.
Further cementing the shibboleth nature of the French language, you ask me.
I believe in Tagalog all meats are called just by the animal name, with no “meat” suffix. Manok is a chicken, and chicken on a plate etc. I wonder worldwide which system is more common linguistically?
Pigs, in both Norwegian and Danish, are either “gris” or “svin” with the former being more common in Norwegian for the live animal, while (as seen from Norway) Danes often use the latter. As food the animal is exclusively “svin”, unless one is using “gris” for comic effect.