Today’s guest post was written by Ed Ammons.
This is a picture of my latest experiment with pork belly.
I only put salt on it this time. It is in a large glass lasagna pan. The smaller pan at the left end is a loaf pan. The block of wood at the right holds all of it up at an angle so that when the salt draws out the moisture it runs to the left end. The thing that is hanging over the side is a folded up paper towel. One end of the paper towel sits in the water that comes from the meat. The water wicks up the paper towel and over the side where gravity takes over and pulls it down to the other end where it drips off into the plastic dish below.
It’s all done inside an old side by side refrigerator that my son gave me. What I had in mind was to make it all into a freezer but that didn’t work out. I decided instead to try to cure meat in it.
I still have to take it out of the salt, wash it off and put it back for a few days, turning ever other day, to dry out.
I’ve never thought about making salt pork like Ed is trying to do. I’ll be sure to get him to update us on how it turns out.
Salt pork was a favorite of Granny and Pap’s and The Deer Hunter and I also enjoy it.
In my area of Appalachia you often hear salt pork called fat back, streaked meat, side meat, or streak-o-lean.
Folks use the salty meat to season beans and other things as well as fry it to eat. The grease from fat back makes good gravy.
Some folks soak it in water before cooking to remove part of the saltiness, but we aren’t those folks. Neither were Pap and Granny 🙂
Last night’s video: Yay! We Now Have Steps to Reach Our Raised Beds! (Well at least most of them )
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Randy,
We would not eat raw pork because of a fear of getting Trichinosis. I remember my oldest brother cutting a piece of tenderloin and eating it from of a hog that had been slaughtered and was hanging
waiting to be removed and cut up. My Mom gave him what for when she found out and I don’t believe he ever did it again.
Apparently, the meat did not have any trichinella larvae because he did not get sick.
Hope his fat back turns out really good. I had no idea how they made it, but I knew the end results are tasty. My mom use to fry it up for breakfast or put a couple slices in a big pot of pinto beans to give them extra flavor. Reading how he is making his was interesting. Please let us know if he tells you how it turns out.
The piece of pork belly I used came from a grocery store and was wet packed. A properly prepared pig is hung in a chilled place until its “animal heat” has reached the temperature of its environment. Daddy believed that it still had life in it until is was cold.
Pork belly, as well as most other supermarket meats, is butchered in a factory where, within minutes of the animal arriving, it can be already packaged for retail sale.
If this experiment works out, and I think it will, I will have something between store bought salt pork and the stuff we used to make at home on the farm. I hope to, someday soon, find a local farmer/butcher who will sell me half a pig that has been hung in a chill room for a few days.
Watched your video this morning. You two exemplify the making of a home and a homestead and a fulfilling life. You two go together as the two halves of one whole, (which indeed is the design). I know that may sound like puffing you up and I know you two do not want that. I just mean it as a simple and sincere compliment. There are, I’m sure, millions of families of which the same could be said. Many of your commenters reveal they same thing about their lives and families. Each one is a pleasure to see, read of or hear about and a reason to hope for extended mercy to this tired old world. Lord knows we need it. Anyway, that’s what your video made me think of.
Ron, I know I write or say way to much, but this Thursday the 26 would be my/our 49th wedding anniversary. I like to think my wife and I were one of the other families you mentioned. It is often said those two halves become one when you marry. What happens or becomes of the half that is left when one of the halves dies in a marriage like that.? For me I still live, but have no heart to carry on with my life. I knew her all of my life but fell in love with her when I was 17 and she was 16 years old and never wanted or was tempted by anyone else. Even though she is dead I still have no desire for anyone else, I would still feel like I was cheating on her. I often wake up after a few hours of sleep thinking or dreaming of her and look or feel that empty side of our bed.
Love it.
I love what we called fatback. What is available to buy is just not the same as we used to have at home. I guess pigs aren’t grown to be big and fat like they used to be. I have heard many times about my husband’s grandfather fishing the chunk of fatback out of the beans and saying it was better than candy. There is a wonderful scene in one of the All Creatures Great and Small series about a young vet being served a block of cold fat at a home where he was treating animals. He could not face the fat and he could not face hurting the farm wife so he bravely ate it by also eating a whole jar of “pickallie” along with it. He later overheard the farmer telling someone that the young vet ” sure punished the pickallie” which was apparently pretty hot. I wonder how the fat was prepared.
I’m glad Miss Grannie is tolerating her treatments so far. Thinking of her and all yall and praying for everyone.
Tipper.
I seem to remember my Dad saying the pork got mighty salty by the time we reached the “bitter end”. That meant when we were “finishing off” the last of last year’s pork.
Dad always taught us to eat the best we had first and that way we would always be eating the best, because it was always the best we had left. He learned that, he said, from watching people lay back their best and by the time they got around to using the “best” it had already passed its “prime” and wasn’t nearly as good as it would have been if consumed first.
Having lived almost 82 years, I concur with his philosophy of eating your best first! That could explain some people eating their dessert first?
Fascinating post about salt pork. I like it to season pinto beans. I do have to watch my salt intake, but “everything in moderation” as the saying goes. Prayers for ALL <3 God, please bless our troubled World
Fat back or middling was a staple in our home. As many have noted, usually a breakfast meat, sometimes for dinner, and always used for seasoning of vegetables. Hog killing time was one the most important days of the year and many farms had a smoke house to cure and hang the meat. Most meat was cured by the salt or salt and pepper method; however, on occasion we did smoke meat. It was always a day to remember; all the “hog killin” crew ate a good meal of many of the variety meats (liver, in particular) as a reward for “helping out”! Sometimes sausage was made and put in “casin’s” and cured; other times it was cooked in a square head pan, cooked in a wood burning stove, and canned. Will and still enjoy fat back, salt pork, pork belly, or other preferred term in our cooking.
Our family usually salt-cured fresh pork in a wooden box. I also remember a product called “liquid smoke” that at other times was liberally brushed on hams, shoulders and slabs of side meat before they were put in cloth bags and hung in the smokehouse or the screened back porch to cure. I have no idea what that liquid was made of, but it did smell like smoke and didn’t kill us. The meat was sliced off as needed. I don’t recall that we ever actually smoked any meat.
If you read my first comment you will see that I said the same about salt curing a lot of the fresh meat in a wooden box that it would be kept in for several months during the winter. After a few months the hams and shoulders would be taken out, washed off and hung with a wire from a nail in the rafters. I think the purpose of hanging them from a wire was to keep the rats from getting to them. We never smoked the hams or used liquid smoke. I would slip into the “smokehouse” and cut me off a piece of the dark red ham meat near the bone and eat it raw. My grandmother and mother said it would cause me to have worms, but if it did I didn’t know it. For some reason Granddaddy never said anything, he may have been doing it too.
I think the main reason for smoking meat was to keep insects. Like a “gnat smoke” makes them pesky little devils stay away from your face that smell makes them think that there is a fire and they need to run and hide.
I have a bottle of liquid smoke I use occasionally but I’ve not made salt pork with it.
We called it salt pork. I never really cared for it though even when it was rinsed. Now when my great uncle would take a pork belly and roast it, that was good eating. For our greens and beans, my gran would put it a smoked ham hock or the leftover ham bone. Country eating is always good eating.
My daddy and his brothers and sisters loved pork fixed any way. Until sometime in the 1950s, they killed and put up the meat from their fattened hog.
Prayers for Granny.
I watched the video and noticed several things, one is Matt saying about the steps “as long as you (Tipper) is happy, that is all that matters. A married man quickly learns if his wife is not happy, nobody is happy! Another thing I noticed is Matt’s “farmer’s tan”, his left sleeve is pulled up and and you can see where the sleeves of his shirt stop. My arms, neck and ankles -no socks, all have a farmer’s tan. I mean for all of this to be funny and maybe make some of us smile a little bit. But I mean this in a more serious way, talking about canning sausage and it making us sick, so many of the things that were done in the past were dangerous and should have killed us according to today’s experts (ExSpurts) but somehow we survived and have lived to be an old age. I think of Grandmother covering most of the food left on the table from Sunday dinner with a table cloth and ate again later on that day and it not making anyone sick.
I have learned to keep clicking the I am human box several times before it being successful.
Yes, please let me know how this process works, if successful I just might try it and see if I can have the same success!
Continuing to lift you all up in our prayers during this time. Cancer treatments are hard on everyone. Hugs!
For many years our church sold white beans, fried side meat and corn bread muffins at the Midsouth fair in Memphis Tn. We oven cooked the side meat and saved the salt and grease to season the beans and grease the muffin tins. This was served with a spoon of chopped onions on top. Boy, did we ever develop a faithful following! Not the least of which were the “Carnies”, people who worked the fair from state to state.
May the Lord give you strength and perseverance for your day. His graces are sufficient for those who love him and are called according to His purpose. Love to Granny and you all!
I remember eating salt pork when I was a kid. My daddy loved it. I found it too salty, but would probably like it now.
I just wanted to share a word of encouragement to you as a caregiver to your sweet Mom. I know that you and your family will be going through some trying times during her treatments.
I know this because I have been going through the same process with my sweet dear wife . It is not an easy journey. For the patient . First I can’t imagine how it is for them. But knowing that your Mom like my wife is a strong Christian woman makes things easier. I pray that this journey will be successful for your Mother and very peaceful and calm and May Jesus guide you and my family in all of our lives. Please pray for us as we continue to pray for you and your family.
Roger-Thank you for your prayers and I will certainly pray for your sweet wife and you too!!
Test to see if I can post!
Brenda-it worked! I’m working on the issues on my end and hope to have them fixed or at least some advice for folks trying to comment since the security changes 🙂
Matt’s stairway to ‘heaven’ is a great work of art. And I think you are right, those 6X6’s will last til at least 3 more generations. I noticed on the video you said Granny’s first treatment was back on the 11th of October…is this her first one and if so, how is she doing. I try to keep up and I do keep those prayers going up. Cancer is such a horrible problem, and notice I called it a problem. There is nothing that God cannot and will not take care of. Also, tell the Deer Hunter good luck. Even if I don’t delve into the eating of his capture, I am sure it is good. God Bless you guys.
Glenda-Granny is making it pretty good so far. Thank you for the prayers!!
I grew up eating salt pork as a breakfast meat and as a flavoring for beans and greens. My grandmother fried it frequently for breakfast and usually some was left over after the meal along with some biscuits. She always covered her eating table with a tablecloth and placed the leftover biscuits and streak-o-lean (as she called it) on the table under the tablecloth. That made a fine snack for her growing grandsons.
My Granny had that fatback, salt pork, stored in a cool dark building, near the well! God bless Granny Louzine Wilson with healing and health in Jesus name
When butchering our hog we would put the ham, shoulders, fat back or side meat and some other cuts in a large, thick wooden box in an unheated outside building and cover it with over a hundred pounds of salt. The salt was bought in 50lb bags. Back then it would stay cold enough through the winter to keep the meat from spoiling. Sawmill or milk gravy (hunky doo to my family)made with the grease from fried out fatback, fresh homemade biscuits along with mother’s homemade jelly is something we ate many mornings before going to school. You can’t cook a “good” pot of beans without having a chunk of fatback in them. After the meat was taken out of the salt, the salt would be given to the mule to eat or used in the ice cream churn. I have often joked and said if I was on death row I think I would ask for some of this gravy and biscuits for my last meal. If you had some good home grown cantaloupe to go along with this meal you would be in hog heaven. I don’t see any reason for Ed’s method not working for making salt pork