1: Vegetable broth is going to taste of…vegetables. If that’s not what I want, it’s not the right ingredient. I have been cooking and eating food for most of my life, so I know a few things about it.
2: How have you managed to miss all the scoldy claims put forth by the wanna-be health and food police about how pork is so terrible for you, being all fatty and piggy and all, it’s like the worst meat for you that you can possibly eat, and that you just shouldn’t? The professional advice-mongers are always slinging that viewpoint at the public. Fortunately for my sanity I can ignore most of their shit, until they start taking products I like off the market.
I’ve wondered the same thing over the years. Pork broth/stock is simply not a mainstream American product.
I’m sure that has become a chicken-and-egg (pig-and-piglet?) situation where if somebody tried to introduce it as a NEW FLAVOR!!1! it’d just sit on the shelves since there are no recipes calling for it and no home cook has it as part of their cooking habits. So no product means no sales means no product means no …
These guys are my fave if I’m not doing make-from-scratch:
Yeah, we have Better Than Boullion ham, chicken, veggie, beef, but not pork. And that’s just fine with me. I could also do without bone broth. You ever tasted that? Eeew.
Here’s the lowdown from a southern cook. A small amount of pork will make gallons of porky water*. In a really short time. You can add any ingredients you find applicable. That will qualify as a broth.
It’s just too easy to get to in that way to make an easier way to get it in cubes and store bought broths.
They didn’t take it off the market. As you noted, it was never on the market. Except for the bullion cubes which remain on the market and you can get on Amazon for $8 and may be in your store now that you know what to look for. What is your issue?
As a side note, I love Better than Bullion (chicken). One of my tricks is to add a little to the water when I make rice. Speaking of which, why wouldn’t ham bullion be an acceptable think when you want pork broth?
Honestly, I think @Beckdawrek probably has it. In most dishes where you’d want to add a ‘porky’ flavor, you don’t bother using pork broth - you add a chunk of pork: salt pork, ham hock, lardons, what have you. A little goes a long way. Or (ideally) quality pork sausage, or other product. Lots of ways to add the flavor, without adding the ton of liquid in most broths.
My gf ate it for lunch for a minute, since it was supposed to be healthy. I didn’t even like the idea that it was in the house. I (easily) convinced her to move on.
The difference between “stock” and “broth” is whether it has bones as an ingredient in the simmering process. Stock yes, broth no. So “bone broth” is an oxymoron. It should be “bone stock.”
Huh. That’s news to me. When I help a friend kill and butcher his lambs I sometimes take bones and scrap home with me. We have three huge stock pots and make what we call lamb broth. Delicious af, but a ton of work.
This is, well, overstated, or at least it’s what the conventional wisdom from many health experts used to be. Yes, depending on the cut, pork can be fatty, and yes, it’s a red meat, so it has the same knocks against it that beef does. Plus, processed versions (ham, bacon) introduce other health issues from the additives.
But, the general wisdom from health experts now is that lean pork is pretty good, as these things go:
I don’t think Japanese cooking makes that distinction - tonkotsu base, which is made by aggressively boiling pork bones (unlike the gentle simmer used in western stocks), is always called “broth” and never “stock”.
I usually make pork broth/stock by throwing ham bones and leftovers in a pot and simmering until it tastes good. I guess technically that’s ham broth. I refrigerate it and skim off the fat. Delish with noodles.