Bacon Today reader R. Rothery pointed us to an excellent recipe for Lamb Bacon today. The recipe was published in the North Coast Journal out of Humbolt County, CA (an area sometimes known for another type of bakin’ — see what I did there?).
Now, the Bacon Today readers have spoken up in the past declaring that turkey bacon is not real bacon. Is lamb bacon really bacon? Author Darius Brotman uses lamb belly to create his bacon. Is this enough to qualify it as bacon? Many of you know much more about the home production of bacon than we do — after all, we’re just bacon reporters.
Let us know your thoughts about lamb bacon using the comments below after you check out his recipe for lamb bacon.
Hmmm… this is worthy of debate.
Boar bacon is obviously bacon because it still comes from a pig.
Turkey bacon is obviously not bacon because it comes from a bird (and tastes nothing like bacon).
But a lamb is another ungulate (hoofed animal) so I don’t really know if it qualifies or not. This could also open the door to goat bacon or something even weirder like llama bacon. Has anyone here ever tasted beef belly cut and prepared the same way that bacon is cut? Would that count as bacon?
A tasting is in order.
I have made beef bacon from the belly. It turned out well only it had to be sliced thin. I also cured it in brine as opposed to dry curing method, cold smoked it and it was ready to go.
The problem with making goat bacon is that goats don’t store their fat in the same way as sheep or pigs.
Although genetically sheep and goats are practically the same animal, sheep store their fat subcutaneously and intramuscularly whereas goats store their fat around their organs. It’s why goat meat is so much leaner than other red meat, because their fat doesn’t marble like beef or lamb.
So goats don’t really have a belly from which to make bacon.
It’s also why sheep tend to “look fat” in comparison with goats that are equally as overfed.
Answering TheMog;
Bacon is more a cut of meat and less a product of a particular animal. Thus, the “beef belly cut and prepared the same way that bacon is cut” is called Beef Bacon. Yes, I’ve had it, and it is not as tasty as Pork Bacon, but it is still good.
Bacon that comes from the belly of an animal is sometimes referred to as “Strip Bacon” due to the alternating stripes of meat and fat. You can get strip bacon from any animal that stores fat in the belly area like pigs and cows do. Wild Boar, Beef, Buffalo, Deer, Elk, Bear, Giraffe, Zebra, etc. Not that you would want to eat some of those…but you could get bacon from them.
The taste Americans associate with bacon comes mainly from the curing process. Uncured bacon tastes considerably different, even when made with pork.
There is also “Back Bacon”, cured exactly like “belly bacon”, but it comes from the loin. This is primarily known in the US as “Canadian Bacon”, and is very different than “Belly Bacon”.
Other cultures also have their versions of bacon, in Asia, it also comes from bellies (primarily pork), but is uncured, unsalted, and is not smoked. It has a very bland flavor by Western taste standards.
However, you are right with birds, they do not have a way to get “bacon” per se, but you can cut, chop, blend, dye, press & form the meat into “bacon like strips”, cure and smoke the resulting concoction, and end up with something that has a pleasing (sic) bacon-like flavor and texture, but it is not bacon.
Hope this answers your question.