Bacon, in the pure sense, can mean simply the raw middle of a pig, boned out, though these days it’s more likely to mean a cured, smoked middle, which is then sliced and fried to have with eggs. There are as many types of bacon as there are methods of curing and flavouring — honey or brown sugar cured, apple wood or hickory smoked. The big differences come in either dry curing (or nitrate-free curing) or brining and in hot or cold smoking. Like anything that’s been smoked, the hot-smoked version will go rancid more rapidly because the fat has been heated once already.
