The Sidemeat Topic

[Chris Amirault]

I've noticed a few references to "sidemeat" in the last couple of days, but I can't find a good definition anywhere. What is it? What does one do with it? Can one make it?

And so on.

Edumucate me, my fine Southern betters.

[onrushpam]

From urbandictionary.com:

Slabs of meat taken specifically from the sides of a pig, practically a staple in the deep south. May be smoked and cured, in which case it becomes known as bacon, or salted, in which case it is known as salt pork. Sometimes referred to as "side pork," as well, it is an indispensable ingredient for the southern dish of boiled greens.

"Side meat" was mentioned numerous times in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," a story of an Oklahoma family who left home during the Dustbowl years to work in the fruit picking industry in California.

Fry up that side meat, ma - I'm starvin'!

Here is a site with a photo:

clicky

[Chris Amirault]

I'm confused. Isn't that a link to, um, ham?

[onrushpam]

Scroll down the photos... there is one of a package of side meat...

[Chris Amirault]

Ah. Got it.

So it's cured? In what? Is it smoked at all?

[onrushpam]

Ah. Got it.

So it's cured? In what? Is it smoked at all?

←

Not smoked.

I've not bought from that place. What I have bought was VERY salty... really the same thing as what is called "salt pork"...

Honestly, for seasoning all manner of greens, field peas, beans, etc., I prefer some of our good locally cured/smoked bacon or ham hocks.. The side meat and salt pork are mostly fat. I love the tasty bits of lean meat left behind.

[racheld]

We never said "side meat"---it was "salt meat" in all our kitchens. And every cook with a pot of peas, butterbeans, snap beans or collards first laid out the slab, took that big ole butcher knife and sliced off a 1/2 inch piece from the cut end.

You'd lay the piece down on the board and cut four little nicks in it, almost all the way up to the hold-it-together skin end, and throw it in the pot. After the required two hours or so of simmering, you'd open the lid, and there it would be, in all its softened, sumptuous porkiness, lying there atop the peas like a little white hand. (Think of the little white chunk afloat on the top of pork 'n' beans when you open the can, only ours was bigger and fancier).

That bit always went onto Grandpa's plate---none of the rest of us would touch that greasy stuff, but it sure did season up a good mess of pot likker.

My roots are showing. Gotta go get some more coffee before I bust out in a big "YEEEE-Haw!!!"