salt pork

Fatty slabs of pork, from the back or sides of the hog, cured with salt.

Not very healthy, but a very flavorful fat to cook with. Fry a couple of eggs in salt pork, and you will see what I mean.

I was a very fussy eater as a kid. (I've grown out of that, thankfully) One day, my mother was frying some eggs, and I refused to eat them. "They don't taste like Noonie's!", I told her. (Noonie was our nickname for my grandmother.) My mother later found out that Noonie had been frying eggs in salt pork, and I wouldn't eat my eggs cooked any other way.

Salt pork. Just the mention of this delectable treat brings saliva gushing into my mouth and a tear to my eye.

Typically, salt pork is a Southern treat, usually eaten for breakfast. My grandmother would fry up a slab of salt pork in a cast iron skillet, and then, when it was finished cooking, fry the eggs in the left over grease.

When cooked, salt pork (at least the stuff we ate growing up) tends to be tough and very very salty, almost to the point of irritating the roof of the mouth. Salt pork, cooked and then diced, is great in a cream gravy over biscuits or mashed potatos. Salt pork is, in many circles, interchangable with the term country ham.