Prompted by another sucessfull sausage making session, I now fancy having a go at doing some bacon. I found one website that said that "longe de porc" would be the cut to use for back bacon but on looking at leporc.com, the longe seems to cover the whole back and includes Echine,Epaule/Palette, Bardiere, Carré, Filét and Pointe de Filét. From these, I would guess that the Carré is the cut to go for but are there any bacon curers out there that can confirm this ?
Steve
http://www.tompress.com/PS-voir_le_catalogue.aspx
An excellent source of materials for the home curer. Send for the paper catalogue. Hours of harmless browsing!
Hey WOW!
Let us know how it turns out and what cut you used. I am sure this information would be useful for other food adventurers!
Mary
Thanks David.
English bacon was always traditionally cured as a split pig in its entirety and boned out after curing (I can remember my father seemingly endlessly boning sides of Danish and Wiltshire bacon). What in fresh pork gives us the pork chop comes from the upper part of the mid section of the pig and is what was the source of back bacon. In France fresh pork boned out from this section of the pig is the carré and there is the problem because not only is it boned out but it is usually derinded and a large part of the fat removed all of which contribute to the product we call bacon. Fortunately the French are not so bothered when it comes to the belly pork or poitrine this you can usually get in a decent sized piece complete with rind. It's cheap and lends itself to dry salt cures. I should start there. If you can find poitrine with a balance of flesh and fat then what you end up with should approximate to streaky bacon.