Salt pork is
salt-cured pork. It is prepared from one of three
primal cuts: pork side,
pork belly, or
fatback. Depending on the cut, respectively, salt pork may be lean, streaky or entirely fatty. Made from the same cuts as
bacon, salt pork resembles uncut slab bacon, but is considerably saltier and not bacon-cured or
smoked. It is thus virtually identical to the Ukrainian food
salo, which also displays similar variation in meat-to-fat ratio. Long used as a shipboard
ration, salt pork now finds use in traditional
American cuisine, particularly
Boston baked beans,
pork and beans, and to add its flavor to vegetables cooked in water, or with
greens as in
soul food. It's also central to the flavoring of
clam chowder. It generally is cut and cooked (
blanched or
rendered) before use.