Fatback
Cut of meat from a domestic pig
Fatback is a layer of subcutaneous fat taken from under the skin of the back of a domestic pig, with or without the skin (referred to as pork rind).
01In cuisine
As an ingredient, fatback is a preferred fat for various forms of charcuterie, particularly sausages and forcemeats for pâtés and terrines. It is used to add moisture and richness to pork based dishes.
Salt-cured on its own, it becomes lardo in Italy and salo in Eastern Europe; szalonna in Hungary is salted and smoked.
Fatback can be rendered into lard.
Fatback is an important ingredient in Southern US cuisine.
02In popular culture
The 1954 rhythm and blues song "Fat Back and Corn Liquor" was written by Louisiana songwriter Rudy Toombs and sung by Louis Jordan. It was released by Aladdin Records as the A side of a ten-inch 78rpm record.
Hunter S. Thompson mentions fatback in the context of depravity: "It was sometime after midnight in a ratty hotel room and my memory of the conversation is hazy, due to massive ingestion of booze, fatback, and forty cc's of adrenochrome."
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Fatback”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Schwein Speck.svg by The original uploader was Rainer Zenz at German Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 2.0 de
- Salo.JPG by Juozas Rimas at English Wikipedia, Public domain
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