Where Does Bacon Come From?

Now that we've sufficiently distanced ourselves from the exhausting wave of turn-of-the-2010s bacon memes (which, it turns out, were an astroturf operation to boost pork sales), we can appreciate the virtues of this delicious pork morsel with clear eyes and a pure if plaque-clogged heart. Bacon existed in some form or another for over a thousand years before it became a fixture on American breakfast plates, and for good reason: These slices of cured pork are smoky, salty, and delicious, perfect as a breakfast side or as an ingredient in a sandwich. They can be chewy and toothsome, or shatteringly crispy; they can be an explosion of smoky flavor, or a more purely pork-centric experience. It's a versatile little rasher, and we're glad to have it in our lives. But where, specifically, does it come from?

Well, to state the obvious, bacon primarily comes from a pig. However, unlike other cuts of meat which come from specific parts of the animal's body (ham, for instance, is cut from the leg of a pig), bacon can be taken from anywhere on the pig that has enough fat, like the belly, the sides, or the back. Depending on where you are in the world, one cut of bacon may be more prominent than others.

If you've ever been to the United Kingdom and ordered a bacon butty sandwich, you already know that not all bacon is created equal. Instead of the thin, crispy pork strips you're accustomed to as an American, you're given a thick, chewy rasher of what you know as Canadian bacon, with a piece of the streaky bacon you're familiar with attached like some vestigial tail. The thicker, chewier piece is back bacon, and in much of the world it remains the default. 

If you'd like the kind of bacon you know and love while you're in the United Kingdom, you'll want to buy a package of "streaky bacon." This is cut from the belly or the side of a pig, resulting in that characteristic half-fat, half-lean composition. In any case, the process for turning pork into bacon is similar no matter the cut: coating in salt and other seasonings, and then letting it cure in either a smoke bath (dry-curing) or in brine (wet-curing).