We saw our son Jimmie recently at a family get together and he said he had bought me a 3-pound log of Canadian Bacon.
That’s nice, but why?
An impulse, he said. I guess I looked like I needed a 3-pound fix of Canadian Bacon even though I haven’t eaten that much in my entire life.
When I got home, I hacked off a few slices, put them in a hot frying pan with a bit of olive oil and wolfed them down. Three pounds may not have been enough.
Canadian Bacon is an overlooked breakfast meat, coming in dead last when pitted against sausage, country ham and regular bacon. Canadian-style bacon is the name used in the United States for a type of ham that has been cured, smoked and fully cooked, then formed into cylinders and sliced. Some New Yorkers came up with the term when this special cut was first imported from Toronto.
Traditional bacon is a cut from the fatty belly of the pig. It has high-fat marbling that renders out during cooking, resulting in crispy, curled, and crunchy strips. Canadian Bacon is cut from the center of the pig’s back—the loin. It is a very lean, solid cut that yields round, meaty, and tender slices that are more like ham than strip bacon.
I had only seen Canadian Bacon before in small packages near the regular bacon, but the log Jimmy gave me is a serious cut of delicious meat. It is far more moist than the handful of slices in smaller packages.
And not only is Canadian Bacon good as a breakfast meat, it can also be used in place of any cut of ham for sandwiches, omelets, casseroles or wherever you would use regular ham. Canadian Bacon is seriously lean and a zillion times healthier that regular bacon. If you happen to be given a 3-pound roll, don’t worry. It’ll go quickly.
