speck
{{Short description|European cured pork product}}
{{Other uses}}
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File:Südtiroler Speck g.g.A. mit Gütesiegel.jpg – South Tyrolean speck]]
Speck can refer to a number of European cured pork products, typically salted and air-cured and often lightly smoked but not cooked.
In Germany, speck is pickled pork fat with or without some meat in it. In the Netherlands and Flanders, in Dutch, spek [sic] is bacon.
Throughout much of the rest of Europe and parts of the English-speaking culinary world, speck is usually South Tyrolean speck, a type of Italian smoked ham. The term speck became part of popular parlance only in the eighteenth century and replaced the older term bachen, a cognate of bacon.{{Citation needed|date=July 2013}}
Regional varieties
There are a number of regional varieties of speck, including:
- Bacon, e.g. Frühstücksspeck ("breakfast speck") in Germany
- Gailtaler speck from Austria, with PGI status, which has been made since the 15th century in the Gail Valley ("Gailtal") in Carinthia[https://www.bmlfuw.gv.at/land/lebensmittel/trad-lebensmittel/Fleisch/Fleischprodukte/gailtaler_speck.html Lebensmittelnet.at - Gailtaler Speck] (accessed 9 January 2008)
- Schinkenspeck, German "ham bacon", typically made from a flat cut of ham with fat along one side resembling bacon, and traditionally soaked for several days in brine with juniper berries and peppercorn
- Speck Sauris PGI, from Sauris, Friuli, Italy
- Speck Alto Adige PGI, from South Tyrol, Italy
- Tyrolean speck from Austria's Tyrol region, which has PGI status, and has been made since at least the 15th century[http://www.tourist-information.at/tirol.php?tmp=03 Austria Tourist Info - Tirol](German) (accessed 9 January 2008)
Jewish deli speck
In Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, in which bacon (like all pork) is forbidden as unkosher, "speck" commonly refers to the subcutaneous fat on a brisket of beef. It is a particular speciality of delis serving Montreal-style smoked meat, where slices of the fatty cut are served in sandwiches on rye bread with mustard, sometimes in combination with other, leaner cuts.{{cite episode |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113754874 |title=A Mission To Save Real Jewish Delis, A Dying Breed |network=NPR |date=October 13, 2009 |series=All Things Considered}}
See also
{{Portal|Food}}
References
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{{Ham}}
{{Bacon}}
{{Fatsandoils}}