the side of a pig cured with salt in a single piece. The word originally meant pork of any type, fresh or cured, but this older usage had died out by the 17th century.
Bacon, in the modern sense, is peculiarly a product of the British Isles, or is produced abroad to British methods, specifically for the British market. Denmark is the leader in this field. In Britain itself, many regional variations on cuts and cures for bacon exist. It was formerly sold by cheesemongers, rather than butchers, and the association is still maintained in some shops.
Preserved pork, including sides salted to make bacon, held a place of primary importance in the British diet in past centuries. Pigs were kept by everyone, fed economically on scraps, waste, and wild food. Their salted and smoked meat was useful to give savour to otherwise stodgy dishes, and was especially important for the poor. Cobbett, in Cottage Economy (1823), considered the possession of a couple of flitches of bacon did more for domestic harmony than ‘fifty thousand Methodist sermons and religious tracts. The sight of them upon the rack tends more to keep a man from stealing than whole volumes of penal statutes.’ Victorian and early 20th-century investigations into the conditions of the poor discovered that bacon was a staple of all households except for the most poverty stricken. At this time, it was thought desirable that bacon should be very fat; bacon fat and lard were then much more important sources of fat in the British diet than they now are.
British pigs for both fresh and salted meat had been much improved in the 18th century. During the 19th, Yorkshire Large Whites, Middle Whites, Tamworths, and Lincolnshire curly-coated pigs were the breeds favoured for bacon. However, in mid-century the Danes, seeking a new market for their pigs, bred a very productive bacon pig, the Landrace, and began to export large amounts of bacon to Britain. Nowadays many bacon pigs are hybrids, with Yorkshire Large White and Landrace prominent in their make-up. Danish bacon and hams still account for 35% of British consumption. In the later 19th century, American imports made up a significant fraction of the cheaper bacon available.
The first large-scale bacon-curing business was set up in the 1770s by John Harris of Calne, Wiltshire (taken over in 1962, the factory demolished in 1984). Until this time pigs for London's bacon had been driven long distances on foot before being killed there, which exhausted them and spoiled the meat. Harris realized that it would be more practical to make the bacon where the pigs were and send that to London.
The standard commercial method of curing bacon is known as the ‘Wiltshire cure’. This was originally a dry cure. The prepared sides of the pig (legs still on, for this method) were strewn with salt and stacked skin side down. (It is during this process that a chemical change, aided by salt-tolerant bacteria and the presence of small amounts of nitrate in the ‘pickle’, produces the characteristic pink colour of the lean.) After ten to fourteen days, the salt was brushed off and the sides matured for a week before packing. Since the First World War, however, brine has been used, both injected into the sides, and for soaking, in place of dry salt. After maturing, the sides may be smoked.
A Wiltshire side is a large piece of meat, and is divided up for various purposes. The shoulder yields the cheapest bacon; the most valued is back and streaky bacon (from the loin region and the belly respectively); while the legs, removed after curing, provide what is called gammon; and other parts of the side may become ‘boiling bacon’.
The Wiltshire cure is but one of a number of techniques, reflecting regional preferences for bacon types; while people in the south of England favoured Wiltshire bacon smoked over oak or pine sawdust, people in the north liked ‘green bacon’ (unsmoked and often cured separately from the legs). Ayrshire bacon, a supremely good Scottish version, is made from skinned and boned meat, rolled and lightly cured. The dry method of curing bacon is still used on some farms; bacon so made is distinguished by its dryness and firmness.
The main British use of bacon is in the thin slices called rashers (formerly, collops), often fried and served with eggs. Although associated with the ‘traditional’ English breakfast, this combination is a favourite meal at more or less any time of day. Larger pieces of bacon, or bacon hocks, boiled and served hot or cold with mustard, were much used as standby dishes in poorer households. There are, or were, all kinds of economical dishes, intended to make a little bacon go a long way: cereal and pulse pottages were early items in this group. Somewhat later, bacon pudding was a common dish in many parts of Britain, in times when every cottager kept a pig. Most regional varieties are suet rolls, or sometimes round puddings, containing bacon, onion, and often sage.
Similar economical practices exist also in many European countries where smoked pork belly is used more as a flavouring than as a meat in its own right.
Preserved pork products which share some of the qualities of bacon are made in other countries. The French use the word lard to mean any kind of bacon, but also either fresh or cured (e.g. smoked) pork fat, which they use to add fat to other lean meat when this is roasted, or in other composite dishes. Streaky bacon is termed lard de poitrine (fumé if smoked, or just poitrine fumée). This is added to such dishes as Choucroute garni (see sauerkraut). Lard salé or petit salé is any salt pork, cut into small pieces.
The general German word for bacon is Speck, but the Germans tend to use streaky bacon or pure fat only, reserving the rest of the side for other products, for example, Lachsschinken from the loin. Speck is typically cut up small and used to add flavour and fat to boiled dishes.
Italian and Spanish cooks use fatty streaky bacon as an ingredient in made dishes. The Italian pancetta and the Spanish tocino are both usually unsmoked; when smoked, the name ‘bacon’ is often used in either language.
Naturally, there is no bacon in the Middle East, where Islam forbids the eating of pork, or in Jewish cookery; but the strong attraction of bacon is implicit in some ingenious bacon substitutes.
There is no Chinese equivalent to bacon. The closest product is finely sliced streaky pork, sometimes cured, used in many Chinese dishes.
Laura Mason has written about several aspects of British food in books including Sugar Plums and Sherbet (1998), Farmhouse Cookery (2005), and Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), which she co-authored with Catherine Brown.
