streak o' lean

[Artfuldodger]

Maybe the different names are regional or passed down from various parents like fish names.
What about "Hairy Fatback?"
My Dad called side meat "white side." I've never heard anyone else call it that. I have read about "white bacon" in Civil War stories.
I never heard anything referred to as "streak-o-lean" until I was grown. I think there are some differences in how something is cured or not cured and/or smoked or not smoked.
I do remeber the salty side meat having some streaks of lean and eating the crunchy rind. Hairs and all. I don't mind eating a little hair.

 

[Paymaster]

Maybe the different names are regional or passed down from various parents like fish names.
What about "Hairy Fatback?"
My Dad called side meat "white side." I've never heard anyone else call it that. I have read about "white bacon" in Civil War stories.
I never heard anything referred to as "streak-o-lean" until I was grown. I think there are some differences in how something is cured or not cured and/or smoked or not smoked.
I do remeber the salty side meat having some streaks of lean and eating the crunchy rind. Hairs and all. I don't mind eating a little hair.

We always scraped the hair off during butchering. Don't remember ever having hairy meat.

 

[Wild Turkey]

pork belly. right below and beside the long section of ribs.
There is some good meat there and its gotta be cut right to be good. I dont really like fat candy.

 

[B. White]

Sounds like there are a lot of regional things at play. My use of the term comes from folks who were kids around here in the 1920's and everyone who had pork had got it from their own hogs. I have had grocery store butchers try and push salt pork on me when I asked them about it. It's funny how something common enough for us to buy every week at any store around has now become extinct. I'll keep checking out of the way places and see what I can find.

 

[RedRyder]

Maybe the different names are regional or passed down from various parents like fish names.
What about "Hairy Fatback?"
My Dad called side meat "white side." I've never heard anyone else call it that. I have read about "white bacon" in Civil War stories.
I never heard anything referred to as "streak-o-lean" until I was grown. I think there are some differences in how something is cured or not cured and/or smoked or not smoked.
I do remeber the salty side meat having some streaks of lean and eating the crunchy rind. Hairs and all. I don't mind eating a little hair.

My family always called it white side also. We are from the Coffee and Jeff Davis County area.

 

[Artfuldodger]

My family always called it white side also. We are from the Coffee and Jeff Davis County area.

I'm from Coffee County also. It might be a local thing. The closest thing i've read is a reference to white bacon cured with salt vs green bacon which isn't cured.

 

[Artfuldodger]

Sounds like there are a lot of regional things at play. My use of the term comes from folks who were kids around here in the 1920's and everyone who had pork had got it from their own hogs. I have had grocery store butchers try and push salt pork on me when I asked them about it. It's funny how something common enough for us to buy every week at any store around has now become extinct. I'll keep checking out of the way places and see what I can find.

Like using "guaner" for manure/fertilizer or "skippers" in cured meat. Roshen ears for corn. I can't remember the last time I ate a "arsh tater."

 

[Artfuldodger]

Fatback – The layer of fat running along the hog’s back. It is available unsmoked and unsalted, and used for making lard and cracklings.

Salt Pork – A fatty pork cut from the hog’s sides and belly that has been cured in salt. Usually used as a cooking fat or flavoring.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Fatback and what we call streak'o lean or streaked meat are different things that come from different parts of the hog. What we call fatback is pretty much pure fat meat from over the loins.

WNC boy here too. My grandmother rendered fatback for grease for most anything she cooked, there was always a plate sitting on the back of the stove with pieces of rendered out fatback, my grandfather, uncles and I would always grab a piece as we went through the kitchen, kind of like a thick, porky potato chip.