Fatback or salt pork????

[awbrig]

Im making Rao's marinara sauce and I need 2 oz of fatback or salt pork. Is this bacon, or what?

Thanks!

[awbrig]

I found the answer, nevermind...

[mamster]

Well, I know what salt pork is, but is there a difference between fatback and back fat? My understanding is that fatback is cured back fat--is that right, or have the terms become interchangeable?

[awbrig]

Wrong, but (no pun intended) thanks for responding...you now have the pleasure of me respoding to you...personally!

fatback: unprocessed fat from belly or back...not cured or smoked...pure mellow flavor

salt pork: fatty part of belly or shoulder...heavily smoked... prized for its fat(not like my wife)...adds savory richness to a dish and typically removed before eating...use sparingly...

[C Squared]

Is this the same salt pork U.S. Civil War soldiers carried in their knapsacks and fried for supper?

[spqr]

As a home sausage maker I am always looking for fatback. However, every supermarket in my area doesn't carry it and I am forced to used trimmings for my fat. I'm told (tho I don't believe it) that all the fatback is reserved for commercial producers and is generally not available to the public. So who do I need to sleep with to get a supply of fatback?

[Bux]

Supermarkets have neither replaced nor supplanted butcher shops. They've just run them out of business. In NYC, fresh fat back is still available from specialty butchers, but not supermarkets. If there are real old fashioned butchers near you, that's where I'd go. You might be able to get away with blanching salt pork fat. It's also not been my experience that salt pork is heavily smoked, so you may be able to use to salt pork fat as is and compensate by using less salt in your recipe. For that you'd have to cook a bit of the mixture before adding the salt.

[torakris]

Wow something I can easily get in Japan that you guys can't get in the US. Now that I know its actual English name, fatback, I might search out uses for. I think it is probably the 2nd most popular cut of pork in this country, behind the tonkatsu cut.

Here it usually braised with some type of soy, but the amount of fat has always turned me off.

Once again egullet teaches me something I didn't know I didn't know.

[mamster]

There's an unlimited supply of fatback at the Asian groceries in Seattle, which leads me to believe that if you have a Chinatown in your town, give it a try. It sells for under 50 cents a pound here.

[mamster]

So, then, why would the recipe call for either salt pork or fatback? How could those things be interchangeable?

[Bux]

I think something is being lost in the communication. When I spoke of "fatback" I was speaking of something that, with the exception of the rind, is 100% fat--no meat at all. The salt pork I have run across may vary from all fat to streaky belly, but usually it's been all fat. The cut I see in Chinatown here in NYC, is treaky belly and often quite lean, for that cut. It's always a good quarter to half fat and still quite a rich cut after braising.

[torakris]

The fatback here in Japan is about 75% fat, usually about 1/2 inch of fat with a streak of meat and then another 1/2 inch of fat and another streak of meat. Sometimes the fat can be an inch thick! This is why I usually avoid it, I can't stand that greasiness in my mouth.

[Jaymes]

I know that historically in the U.S. south, pretty much every recipe you ever saw for cooking vegetables said, "and a little piece of fatback for flavor."

I often use a strip or two of bacon in mine, but it doesn't taste the same as my grandmother's.