Among many exotic, strange and amazing products, we can also speak about ancestral foods that avant-garde cookery does not depreciate, but rather improves by applying innovative techniques, adapting them to today’s tastes with imagination and sensitivity.
Bacon is one such, and it is at its very best when this fatty meat comes from Iberian pigs.
On the other hand, like many other food terms, the word bacon comes from the Old French word bakko, ham, which came to denote a piece of salt pork or the whole hog. In fact, in ancient times, a state banquet, serving only pork was dubbed a ‘bacónica meal’. What happened is that the English soon took ownership of the word and now, when speaking of bacon, we immediately think of Anglo-Saxons. However, the passion for bacon and torreznos, which are fried and crispy pieces of bacon, has a long tradition in Spain from centuries ago.
There are even beautiful literary references, specifically from Cervantes, who includes in the regular diet of a genial gentleman, the poetic ‘sorrow and damage’. Apparently this dish, which was made with corned beef, bacon, sausage and eggs, could only be eaten on Saturdays because according to an old Castille custom (which ended up being abolished by Pope Benedict XIV in 1742), no fresh meat or suet could be eaten on Saturdays, so they took the opportunity to consume corned beef, prepared with cattle that had either died or been killed while migrating or in pens. Apparently, the odd phrase ‘sorrow and damage’ refers to the pain this caused the owners of the herds, who lost their animals, and the fact they used to break the bones to take advantage of the marrow in soups and stews, hence the ‘damage’. Furthermore, cured meat or smoked pork was used by old Christians to distinguish the Jews, who on Saturdays ate adafina, composed only of lamb or beef, and for whom pork was a forbidden and sinful animal, as it was for the Moors, as well. That is why, as the saying goes, ‘Bacon has many enemies from the Moors to fine people’. Speaking of sayings, one that is indeed very macho in this respects, is: ‘Bacon makes the pot, man the marketplace and woman the house’.
