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  British Cuts of Bacon

  Back. (Prime back, Top back, Long back.) This may be cut in rashers or chops, or rolled and used as a joint. In the north of Britain, the back is rolled before slicing, which gives the rounded shape of the back rashers there.

  Bacon chops. Back rashers cut very thick, like chops, and used for grilling.

  Collar. The whole collar weighs about 4 kg (9 lb) and is usually cut into smaller joints or sliced into rather square rashers. Collar has more fat and is somewhat coarser meat than that from the back or from gammon.

  Corner. Part of a gammon (see below).

  Flank. The fattiest and least valuable part of the belly of the pig. This can sometimes be bought very cheaply, but is nowadays often sliced with the back above it to give the more economical through-cut rashers. If the cook cuts off the flank part and uses it for cooking, this may well be less of an economy for him or her than it is for the butcher, who is unloading the bits that might otherwise be difficult to sell.

  Flitch. The side of bacon minus the shoulder and ham.

  Fore-end. Shoulder and neck part of the pig; shoulder is inferior to the gammon. The meat is coarser and more fatty.

  Forehock. Whole, this weighs about 3½ kg (7-8 lb). It can be boned and used for roasting or boiling either as a large joint or cut into smaller joints.

  Gammon. Same word as the French jambon (ham), but cured as part of a Wiltshire side of bacon and not given a stronger, longer ham cure. lt is the finest part of the pig. Gammon is cooked whole to make a very mild ham, used as bacon joints or cut into gammon rashers. Corner is a triangular joint of 1½ kg (3½ lb) or a smaller joint plus corner fillet steaks. Middle gammon, also called prime gammon, is cut from the centre of the backside, a lean, fine textured and well-flavoured joint which weighs 3½ kg (8 lb); it is also cut into gammon steaks for grilling. Slipper, a small joint of only ½ kg (1¼ lb), is very lean but not quite so good as the middle gammon. Gammon hock, 6 kg (13 lb), is more or less the whole gammon, apart from the narrowest part, the knuckle. This is mostly bone, with some well-flavoured, rather stringy meat. It is mainly used for soups and some European dishes.

  Knuckle, may be either gammon knuckle (see above) or fore (fore hock) knuckle, which is used similarly.

  Loin. The section behind the oyster and in front of the gammon. When cut right through it may be called long back or long loin.

  Middle. The middle of the pig is what you would expect it to be: the part behind the collar and in front of the gammon. lt corresponds roughly to the rib cage and belly and can be divided horizontally into the back and the streaky. A whole middle would weigh about 12¼ kg (27 lb) and is the part providing most of the breakfast bacon rashers. Back rashers have a good area of lean and less fat than the streaky rashers (see below). Middle cut or through cut rashers are cut right through (after boning) and are long rashers which include both back and streaky or flank (see above). Middle is also the best part of gammon (see above).

  Oyster. A small fist-shaped piece which nestles between the long back and the short back. It may be rashered or boiled.

  Rasher. Any thin slice of bacon. Very thin slices are preferred in Scotland, while further south and in Wales they are usually cut thicker. Thin slices are best for those who prefer crispy-fried bacon, and the thickness to which rashers are cut is important in some dishes.

  Slipper. Part of a gammon (see above).

  Streaky. The belly part of the pig, with alternating streaks of fat and lean. In many European countries, this is the only part turned into bacon. lt is nearly always rashered and fried, and for many is the nicest of all for breakfast. The front part, which is leaner, is called prime streaky, while the hind part is thin streaky. The bit right at the rear is called flank (see above).The whole piece of streaky weighs about 3 kg (6½ Ib).

  European Bacon

  Guanciale. A speciality from southern Italy and usually translated as a bacon, although it is the cured jaw of the pig and thus more similar to *Bath chap in origin.lt has a special type of fat and is the correct ‘bacon’ to use in spaghetti alla carbonara and all’amatriciana, two well-known Italian dishes.

  Lard. French for bacon, although the French often use the word bacon in the English sense. (Bacon is originally a French word meaning any sort of pork, as indeed it was in English until after Shakespeare’s time.) The French for lard is saindoux.

  Panchetta. Italian salted pig’s belly. When smoked it is called bacon.

  Poitrine fumée. Literally smoked breast, the French for bacon.

  Selschcarée. Perhaps this just comes in the category of bacon. lt is carefully-trimmed back, cured in spiced brine for only 3 days, lightly smoked (cold) for 24 hours, and usually eaten boiled with sauerkraut.

  Speck. German for bacon but covers items which would hardly come under the same heading in other countries, such as zigeuner Speck which is little more than cured and smoked fat rolled in paprika; you can eat it raw on cold days when skiing or climbing in the Alps.

  Tocino. Spanish salted fat belly or other fat pork. Often covered with a layer of crystalline salt, it is not smoked and bears little resemblance to bacon. Smoked, cured belly in Spain is known as bacon.

  [Bacon – French: lard German: Speck Italian: lardo Spanish: jamon]

  BACTERIA. These microscopic organisms are smaller than *yeasts and are found everywhere in astronomical numbers. Even though processes involving them were managed by mankind long before bacteria were discovered, some knowledge about them can be useful in the kitchen.

  There are thousands of different bacteria, just as there are thousands of different animals and plants, but bacteria have to be distinguished, not by their appearance (there are only a few shapes and many look alike), but by what they do. This is possible because each species operates in a specific way and in specific conditions. For instance, Lactobacillus bulgaricus (bacteria have no popular names, though they may be referred to by the name of the process or disease which involves them) will always turn milk sugar into lactic acid, but it cannot utilize cane sugar or produce alcohol.

  Each single bacterium has an infinitesimally small effect on its surroundings, but we are normally dealing with millions of millions. Bacteria can multiply at a startling rate by simply splitting into two; they can split twice – even three times – in an hour when conditions are exactly right. This accounts for the surprising fact that a single teaspoon of starter will *clabber 2 lt (3½ pt) of milk in five hours – it would set three times that amount if conditions were perfect, which they never are. Twelve hours later it would, in theory, have clabbered over 100,000 It (175,000 pt). It has been calculated that the offspring from a single bacterium could theoretically cover the entire surface of the earth in two or three days. However, bacteria rapidly use up the available food or pollute their environment with their own waste products – they overwhelm themselves with their unbridled breeding, a solemn thought for humans.

  In nature, it is rare to find one sort of bacteria growing alone; they are always in mixtures. Indeed, some will not grow at all except in association. Certain kinds are habitually found together in a particular situation (in milk, for instance), and they work together to produce an end product in a way that none of them could do singly. They feed on each other’s waste products and follow one another in logical order. It is such a chain of events (which also includes yeasts and fungi) rather than the effect of one organism which we have to deal with in the kitchen. A good example is the ripening of cheese. People were making cheese long before they knew that it was a living process they were controlling. This is comforting because it taxes the best dairy bacteriologists to follow the sequence of events in any detail, but at least we can now understand why the accepted procedures must be followed exactly and why short cuts or variations may lead to disaster. If the book says boil for 20 minutes, then the substance must boil for 20 minutes and not for 10 minutes.

  Bacterial processes can be controlled first of all by temperature. Yoghurt-producing bacteria grow at
around 40°C (104°F), but will be beaten out of the race by other organisms when the temperature is lower. Acidity, type of food, moisture, salt, light or dark, air or no air, the presence or absence of certain other types of organism and the presence of antibiotics or antiseptics – all these are factors influencing the growth of bacteria.

  Certain rod-shaped bacteria can produce spores, which create a special problem. There are only about 150 kinds of these: 100 aerobes (which need air) and 50 anaerobes (which do not need air). Unlike the spores of fungi (but like the spores of yeasts), bacterial spores are not produced for purposes of multiplication, but so that the organism can survive tough conditions. Spores usually form only when the community or culture becomes old, the environment is polluted by waste or food is scarce. lt takes 24 hours for bacteria to form spores (but only 4-6 hours to start germination again). Spores are very difficult to kill. Some can lie doggo for up to 10 years and survive hours of boiling. See pasteurization, poisoning.

  [Bacteria – French: bactérie German: Bakterie Italian: batteri Spanish: bacteria]

  BADOIT. See water (mineral water).

  BAGACEIRA. See marc.

  BAJRA. See millet.

  BAKING. In English, this somewhat inexact term usually means cooking bread or cakes in an oven. The Germans have the word backen too, from the same source, but in French, Italian and Spanish one has to be specific and say ‘cook in an oven.’ Baking can also mean almost any method of cooking in which the food comes into contact with dry heat, or is otherwise parcelled and cooked in ashes. Girdle cakes, muffins, chapatties and similar breads are baked on an iron plate or girdle, and potatoes may be baked in the ashes of a camp fire. For a clam bake, the shellfish is steamed in seaweed, but the seaweed is in contact with hot ashes and stones in a pit – a variation on the most primitive method of baking there is.

  In the Orient, a traditional way of baking is to wrap food in banana leaves and cover it in hot ashes. The modern variant is to wrap the food first in foil and then bury it in a pit in which a fire has burned for many hours. (Sheep-stealers bake their stolen lamb under the fire.) The supposed gypsy way of cooking a hedgehog encased in clay is baking. So also, perhaps, is the even more basic method used by some Australian aborigines whom I have seen throw a wallaby, skin and all, into the camp fire. The skin and fur char to form a protective shell of carbon inside which the meat is beautifully baked.

  The most primitive form of oven for baking is no doubt the tandoor, which in its simplest form is a large pot sunk into the earth. This is a Middle Eastern device – you find it much used in Iran – and it has spilled eastwards into the Punjab, where it is the common way of cooking. In more sophisticated versions, the pot is raised above ground and built into a sort of stove, which is well insulated with plaster and mud. There may be a means of letting air in at the bottom of the pot to adjust the heat. The fire of wood or dried dung is lit some two hours before cooking time, and fuel is controlled so that it will have burned down to ashes by the time the tandoor is hot. Breads are slapped on to the hot sides near the top (beginners will burn their arms and drop the bread into the coals), and meat is threaded on a sword or metal spit and thrust down into the heat. (People with gardens will find a square tandoor easy to construct with fire bricks.)

  The tandoor type of oven is limited, and an advance is the brick oven with a side opening which was once common in Britain and America and is still used in rural parts of Europe and in the Middle East. The usual form has a flat bottom, an arched or domed top, and a chimney at the back. The door is closed with an iron sheet which also provides the means of controlling the rate of burning by the amount of air let in – the oven is heated by burning brushwood in it, not underneath. The heat permeates the brickwork to give an oven which cools slowly as it is being used; in some ovens a bank of pebbles is heated up. The time taken to heat is several hours, depending on when the oven was last used. When the wood is reduced to ashes, these can be either drawn out or pushed to the back, and the chimney is blocked with a stone. Experts judge the heat of the oven by rubbing a piece of charred stick on the brickwork and noting the sparks formed. There are other tests, such as the time taken to char paper. To work with this type of oven, one must get used to baking on a falling heat, but as bread cooked in such an old-fashioned brick oven has an incomparable taste, it is worth the little practice (and some disasters) needed to master the technique. Flat bread, pizzas and nan – or other doughs – should be put straight on to the hot, ashy brick to bake.They never stick.

  [Baking – French: cuire au four German: backen, im Ofen braten Italian: cuocere al forno Spanish: cocer al horno]

  BAKING POWDER is a mixture of acid and alkaline substances which, when moistened and/ or heated, react together to produce carbon dioxide gas, which in baking makes cakes rise.lt is a relative newcomer to cooking. Until the end of the 18th century, *leavening was managed only with *yeast, although lightness in cake-making could be produced by beating in air – some recipes suggested ‘beating for an hour or two’ – or by adding spirits, which, being volatile, would expand into a gaseous state when heated.

  In 1790, in America, it was found that a refined form of wood ash called pearl ash (a carbonate of potash) could be used in baking cakes to make them rise. Two years later, some 8,000 tons were exported to Europe. However, as pearl ash produces a soapy taste in baked goods, its use was limited to highly spiced cakes such as gingerbread. Pearl ash was followed by *bicarbonate of soda which was also called saleratus (aerating salt). One writer remarked that ‘it was said to be responsible for much of the dyspepsia common in the USA.’

  By the mid-19th century, baking powder had been introduced. This was a mixture of bicarbonate of soda with a mild acid, usually *cream of tartar or *tartaric acid, and rice flour. Modern baking powder still contains bicarbonate of soda as its alkaline ingredient, plus a combination of acids to provide a double action with the bicarbonate – an acid such as tartaric acid which reacts on moistening (releasing gas to aid in the mixing), and a slower-acting acid such as acid sodium pyrophosphate which releases very little gas until it is heated in the oven. Dried starch or flour is added to baking powder as a filler which also absorbs any moisture in the atmosphere and thus prevents any reaction taking place during storage.

  In the absence of a bought baking powder, you may use bicarbonate of soda in a mixture containing an acid, such as *buttermilk. An alternative is to make up your own simple baking powder by mixing a tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda with 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar – both of which must be very dry. A drawback in this preparation is that it starts to fizz as soon as it is mixed with liquid; the cake should therefore be baked as soon as possible and not kept hanging about, or the powder may have exhausted its potential before the cake is heated through enough to set it.

  The quantity of baking powder required varies from recipe to recipe, but a good general rule is that the plainer the cake mixture the more baking powder is required; the richer the cake the less baking powder is needed. Too much or too little baking powder upsets the balance of the ingredients, so it is always worth measuring baking powder carefully and making minor adjustments to recipes after assessing your results.

  [Baking powder – French: levure chimique German: Backenpulver Italian: lievito Spanish: levadura]

  BAKING SODA. See bicarbonate of soda.

  BALACHAN, balachong, or blachan (and various other spellings) is a very important flavouring in the cooking of Malaysia, Indonesia (where it is called trasi) and other Southeast-Asian countries. It is made of shrimps or prawns, which are caught in huge numbers in the tropical creeks and salted, dried, pounded and allowed to mature in a humid heat until a ripe smell and taste develop. One might describe it as gamey, but it is quite essential in the dishes of the region and is not the same as Indian *balachong.

  It may be coloured from pink to dark brick, and may be caked, powdered or in the form of a pinkish paste. There is no real substitute, although anchovy paste has been
suggested as the nearest thing outside the Orient. It keeps almost indefinitely in the refrigerator, provided it is kept dry in a closed jar. Balachan is never eaten raw, but is fried with the spices in a recipe, or is roasted dry, then ground and added. You would be well advised to wrap the piece to be roasted in foil, as this helps to prevent the smell from pervading the house.

  BALACHONG, balichow, or balachow is a pickle made in South India of salted prawns, mangoes or even dried duck eggs and eaten as a relish with curry (compare *balachan), It is hot and strongly flavoured, for though fresh prawns are used, the tropical sun has usually given them a ripe taste before the pickle is made. This relish can be bought, or you can make it as follows:

  Prawn Balachow

  Clean and shell 450 g (1 lb) prawns, and put them through a mincer. Heat 600 ml (1 pt) of oil and fry in it 300 g (11 oz) minced onion, 300 g (11 oz) skinned, seeded and chopped tomato. Add a paste made of 50 g (2 oz) garlic, 50 g (2 oz) fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon cumin, I tablespoon peppercorns, 15 g (½ oz) turmeric and 125 g (5 oz) hot chilli, which have been moistened during pounding with a little vinegar. Fry this paste and then add the minced prawn with a small handful of curry leaves (if available). Fry for another minute or so, then add salt and vinegar – up to 600 ml (1 pt) – to obtain a nice taste and consistency for a relish. Simmer gently till cooked, allow to cool a little, bottle and seal in screwtop jars.

  Basic Cake Recipes

  This table shows the proportion of baking powder and plain flour to other ingredients. Eggs used are size 4 (55 to 60 g).Teaspoons should be standard size.

  BALM, lemon balm or melissa. A labiate plant native to southern Europe, balm (Melissa officinalis) was first introduced to Britain by the Romans. It has a strong lemony scent and can make a change as a flavouring where a little lemon zest might be nice; it is useful as a substitute for lemon grass and particularly as a flavouring in liqueurs.