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.