Tip to Tail: A Month of Pork: Day 8: Well cooked bacon…it gets the “dirty” out!

There was no time for breakfast this morning, just a quick espresso before heading out to work. Hunger shouldn’t be a problem though since I’m still full from last night’s pulled pork sandwich; it was a monster. On the topic of last night’s dinner, let me return to my unnamed friend who shall remain unnamed for fear that he be outed in his community as a pork eater. He describes himself as a modern Jew who will happily eat well cooked bacon, sausage and ribs. But he draws the line at “dirty” cuts like loin, chops and tenderloin. Where is the logic in all of this? His view is especially troubling since sausages essentially contain the off cuts of every part of the pig. Hell, that’s the reason that sausages exist; to hold together the pieces that aren’t big enough to eat on their own. I pressed him on the matter, but he could offer no explanation or justification for the conflict between his doctrine and his actions. Proof positive that when something is as good as bacon, you’ll do anything to get it.

I bought my second coffee of the morning from Brick Street Bakery. While there I found the reason to not have to endure hunger for the morning, a freshly baked sausage roll! My friend Alex turned to me and remarked that it was strange that we had never noticed that they sold these things; but on the morning when I needed a pork breakfast, they magically appeared. That’s because pork is always looking out for its friends.

Pork Roll...customized with hot sauce

For lunch I met my friend Chris at Bannock; technically, it was a working lunch because he had come prepared to pick my brain about work stuff. I came prepared to pick some pork off my plate. The appetizer of salted cod donuts wasn’t a pork dish, but it did come with small cubes of double smoked bacon. For my main I ordered braised pork shoulder served with spaetzle (a german noodle), caramelized onions and cooked apple cubes. I couldn’t quite understand how spaetzle makes its way into a dish served at a restaurant billing itself as serving “Canadian comfort food”, but it was tasty nonetheless. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Bannock has Labatt 50 on tap. For this reason alone, Bannock is a winner and would remain so even if the food was terrible.

Dinner presented an opportunity to get into the weird bits. Normally relegated to the role of dog treat, the star of tonight’s meal was pig ears. I scoured the net for a recipe and the consensus was that boiling for a couple of hours, followed by a weighted sear in a hot dry pan was the best preparation for achieving a combination of crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. They feel like human skin when they're raw, and I imagine the searing process offers similar sounds and smells that you'd experience of you cooked your own ears...just on a small scale. I enjoyed one of them with some white beans cooked in pork lard with diced prosciutto shanks and home-made salami. I had to ask myself, why haven’t I made ears before? they're so good. The other ear has been saved for tomorrow’s breakfast. I’ll try and avoid burning the oats.