Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The More You Know

Apparently, you're supposed to purchase pork belly "with the rind removed".

I was not aware of this when I purchased my pork belly and I ended up with pork belly with a rind.

Do you know what that rind consists of? They call it a rind like it's the white part of the orange that you don't eat, but it's really the skin. The epidermis of the pig.

Do you know what pig skin is like? It's like squishy leather and if you run your hand over it, you can feel where the bristly hair used to be. Also, those nubby little pieces of skin on one side? Nipples.

Fortunately, by the time I identified the nipples, I'd already mixed up the salt cure rub and was already too far into the bacon-making process to turn back just because I was skeeved out by swine nipples.

Also, fun to learn, that rind, that pig skin doesn't just peel off like the skin of a orange, it's on there, it's attached and you will probably go through three different knives just trying to separate them before you finally drag out the Thanksgiving electric knife.

By the end, you will be covered in little bits of pig fat and convinced that if this doesn't turn out to be the best bacon ever, you're never going to experiment in the kitchen again. Ever.

Labels: suzy fucking homemaker