Those of you who were not raised as hillbillies may not recognize the significance of side meat. Taken from the area between the bacon and the pork belly, it is used now as filler for sausage or just plain waste. When I came up, you ate everything on the pig, including the "3-T" meat and the squeal. You didn't have the luxury of waste. Real side meat is cut about 3/8 of an inch thick, cooked slowly, browned but not crisp. It makes a lot of grease, so you would have enough to fry your potatoes and eggs in, then to make gravy. Probably high in cholesterol and not considered "good for you" by modern terms, it was a staple to my grandmother who was born and raised in "Stone County, Georgie". Grandpa ate side meat and gravy for breakfast nearly every day of his life, and may have contributed to his demise at 106.
You can't buy real sidemeat in a grocery store. What they sell for side meat they call "pork side" and is essentially uncured bacon. We went to the pork shop the other day for our semi-annual visit. I asked Vince if he would cut me some real, hillbilly side meat. He knew exactly what I was wanting. I had a big slab about 8" long, 3" wide and 3/8" thick for breakfast this morning, along with hash browns and eggs. Wonderful! I don't know what else to say. It had been over 50 years since I had eaten GOOD side meat. Surely once a year won't kill me.
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.....Thomas Alva Edison
Where I grew up there wasn't meat by that name. What you describe, we would get by the name "fresh side" and we would always eat it with potato soup. I hadn't had any since my childhood, until when I started with my current employer and we would eat at the "Sloppy" Floyd cafeteria at the Georgia state building as we started the work day. They had it for breakfast by the name of "streak o' lean" and it would be customarily be eaten with cheese grits.
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Side meat was considered "poor eating", something poor people would eat, because it was cheap. I paid $6.96 a pound for something many people fed to their dogs when they butchered. My grandma wouldn't waste anything, wouldn't buy new just because what she had was "old" and wasn't too good to eat what was set before her. I'm guessing what I call side meat may have colloquial nomenclature attached to it. And different ways to eat it. We always ate it for breakfast. What I had this morning for breakfast was as good as I remembered it. The only thing missing was red-eye gravy. I can make it "okay", but not NEAR as good as grandma could.
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.....Thomas Alva Edison
In my neck of the woods, it was referred to as "side pork". And yes, Grandma would fry it up and serve it at dinner time with either boiled potatoes or American fries, her homemade bread, and iceberg lettuce as the salad. Her salad dressing was "Henri's Tastee Dressing". Dessert would be whatever she wanted to make that day, but usually something with apples. Her apple-grunt was awesome. After eating the side pork and potatoes grandpa would take a thick piece of grandma's homemade bread, butter it, have grandma pour the grease off the side pork onto the bread and then cover it with salt. My grandpa only lived to be 87.
I have a daily after-work walking route. It takes me up the biggest local hill and then through a recreation area's trails and finally home, about 3-1/2 miles. These days it's in the dark. What I have noticed is that most modern kitchens, even in the old homes of my neighborhood, have exhaust fans, so I get a good whiff of what's cooking. The most attractive tends to smell Italian. Sometimes there will be a whiff of bacon. It's all good.
And it's all forbidden for me. I'm on a diet that's almost exclusively fruits, vegetables, and grains. No, not from some sort of philosophical commitment, but from the effects of past dietary and behavioral indiscretions (i.e., bad choices of diet and smoking). After the last cardiac catheterization, I checked out the online procedure report (the digital age is amazing). The diagnosis included "CTO" of a major coronary artery. CTO?? Looked it up. "Chronic total occlusion." In other words, completely & permanently plugged up. Whoa, that gets your attention. No more pasties for lunch (for non-Michganians, that's a Welsh meat pie in pastry, eaten by miners for lunch).
At the last appointment I asked the young P.A. if I was likely to drop dead suddenly, like when shoveling snow or whatever. Oh no, she said, that's what happens to people who are partly plugged up. Something floats along and gets caught, plugging up completely. You're already plugged up so not problem. I seem to be getting along on collateral circulation, other sources getting the blood to the heart muscle now that the proper source is closed down.
So in the morning when the thermometer says 25 degrees F. and I wonder if I really want to get on a cold bicycle and ride 3 miles to work, I have some incentive to say "yes, "deleted"" and even more incentive to make oatmeal for dinner, as I'm going to do shortly. It would be great to choose sausage or bacon or grilled cheese (etc.) but hey, I read the obits, and too many of them are for folks my age or younger.
I grew up eating lots of salt, sugar and grease. I still love greasy food, I just can't eat as much of it as I used to since I had my gallbladder out. I won't go in to why.....
I have started using EVOO instead of bacon grease when cooking. I don't add salt at the table. I still eat lots of pepper and like Texas Pete on about everything.
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.....Thomas Alva Edison
I'm kind of like Greg when it comes to greasy food, and like him I won't go into what happens when I do. The problem is, I love fried fish, French fries, bacon, eggs cooked on bacon, and as I said in my last comment on this subject, my grandma's "side pork". Like Chris, but for different reasons, I carefully have to watch what I eat.
