American cuts of pork

Pork is particularly common as an ingredient of sausages. Many traditional European sausages are made with pork.

Ham and bacon are made from fresh pork by curing with salt (pickling) and/or smoking. Shoulders and legs are most commonly cured in this manner for ham whereas streaky and round bacon usually comes from the loin, although it may also come from the side and belly.

Ham and bacon are popular foods in the west, and their consumption has increased with industrialisation. Non-western cuisines also use preserved meat products. For example, salted preserved pork or red roasted pork is used in Chinese and Asian cuisine.

In order to utilize the whole carcass, parts of the pig such as knuckle, pig's feet ("trotters"), chitterlings (pork intestines), and hog jowls may be eaten. In earlier centuries in the United States some of these products figured prominently in the traditional diets of poor Southerners. Feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, is prepared with pork trimmings: ears, tail and feet.

Because of its high myoglobin content, pork is red before cooking, although it becomes lighter as it is cooked. Pork is considered a red meat, because it contains more myoglobin than white meat such as fish and chicken. Pork is very high in thiamin.

12.Answer the questions.

1.Is pork the most widely eaten meat in the world?

2.Why does the consumption of pork vary in different parts of the world?

3.In what way can carcass of pig be utilized?

4.Are cuts named in the same way in Britain and America? Give examples.

5.Is pork used in sausage manufacture?

6.What cuts are used for making ham and bacon?

7.Do non-western cuisines use pork?

8.Why is pork considered a red meat?

13.Read the following text and say what the temperature and time of meat cooking depend on.