Mistakes I will not make again

[maradydd]

Prosciutto is not bacon.

Comments

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Prosciutto, as every good Finn knows, is ham.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

It's cured, but not smoked.

When I tried to wrap my pork roast in it, it didn't work as well as I would have liked. I wound up draping it across the slit I'd made for the stuffing instead, and then tying it all up with twine.

There's nothing wrong with that, though, and the roast was awesome. 8-)

-- Lorrie

[michiexile]

It most definitely isn't. It is, however, almost the same as Schwarzwälder Schinken and as Jambon Serrano.

Dried cured ham!

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Prosciutto is awesome, bacon is awesome, but yes, they are not equivalent.

Pancetta is sort of the mad love-child of both.

[cork-dork.livejournal.com]

Prosciutto : Bacon :: Chimay : Miller Lite

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I'm revoking your Man Card for maligning bacon like that.

[cork-dork.livejournal.com]

Not maligning bacon -- just noting that proscuitto is an artesian product, while bacon is generally not.

Perhaps a better beer to make the analogy with would be like JW Dundee Honey Brown or Shiner Bock.

[kragen.livejournal.com]

proscuitto is an artesian product

In the town of Proscu Itto, rather than curing pork to make ham, the town residents merely harvest it from the fountain downtown. Every morning the grandmothers and orphans line up outside the town hall, awaiting the opening of the building at ten o'clock; once inside, they set to work on the huge mound of ham that has spontaneously bubbled out of the earth during the night. Using deadly sharp knives, each citizen hacks out as much ham as they can carry in their ham baskets, then departs to bring home the bacon, as it were.

By eleven-thirty, the huge mound of ham has diminished to nothing; each new entrant must wait as the pink manna bubbles forth from the artesian ham well with agonizing slowness. At this point each one is only allowed half a kilogram. Many return home empty-handed after waiting for hours, and toward the end of the day the line melts away altogether.

In years past, the ham wells ran fuller; at times they would fling ham several meters into the air. But in recent years, the subterranean ham table seems to have receded, and the legendary ham wells of Proscu Itto have become shadows of their former selves. They can barely sustain half of the population they used to. Climate change, some murmur, while others see it as divine retribution for the town's sins. But just as the cigarette trees of the Big Rock Candy Mountain hardly ever come into flower these days and its lemonade springs have run dry, so the ham wells are fading away. Perhaps in a few years they will only be a part of history, and then only a legend.

*splutter*

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Kragen I cannot breathe why do you do this to me

Really, that was glorious.

Re: *splutter*

[kragen.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted it succeeded so well.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

Truly, bravo.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

applause

Oh, well played.

[vily.livejournal.com]

It could have been a happy mistake, but I see by your mood that it was not.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Do not fry prosciutto. It will only end in tears.

[vatine]

Hm? I've had good luck frying prosciutto, but under very non-bacon-frying circumstances (chopped prosciutto, fried with chopped mushrooms, in plenty of butter and some ground pepper; onions, garlic and leek to taste; dash of cream; let simmer, serve over tasty tasty pasta). I didn't cry for a single moment.

[chocolatecoffee.livejournal.com]

I've queried my brain for a dish that includes bacon but would be destroyed to the point of icky by prosciutto. No results were found. Bad prosciutto? Thwarted bacon craving?

[drcuriosity]

I'm curious, too. Please state the nature of your culinary pig product emergency.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

"Thwarted bacon craving" is probably the best way of putting it. Waaaaay too salty.

[bigby.livejournal.com]

Have you ever subbed in salt-pork :) It is to bacon as crack is to coke.

[neoliminal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a failed PLT?

I had Prosciutto for lunch today, so it's very serendipitous to see it here.

[kejlina.livejournal.com]

I used to love this stuff before going vegan.

Ever since visiting the Body World exhibit, though, I'm not sure if I could eat prosciutto even if I wasn't vegan.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

As long as it's not human prosciutto...

I live in a town where the best place to get fresh meat is the butcher shop. It's like Body Worlds, only no plastic preservation. It makes me sad that Americans, in general, have lost touch with "where their meat comes from." We'd eat a considerably smaller amount of factory-farmed meat if we were in the habit of dropping by the "farm" to pick up our beef or pork or chicken and getting to watch the operation. And we'd appreciate more greatly the gift of life given up to us by the slaughtered animal if we routinely witnessed the process of humane butchering. The shrink-wrapped packages in the grocery store are so far removed from a living, breathing, feeling being that I don't think most people think about these issues.

I suddenly have a craving for venison.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Have you even been to the store that sells pieces of sheep?

Really, not sheep products, just pieces of sheep, the meat and the skins. I want one of those skins as a fireplace rug, they're so fluffy. Their lamb chops are really good, too.

[kragen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the process of human butchering in Body Worlds sort of brings an new perspective to my experience of butchers' products.

[sfllaw.livejournal.com]

You need to make crispy prosciutto. You will never go back.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

How does one do this? Fried, it was far too salty to endure.

[sfllaw.livejournal.com]

I like baking mine in a low oven on a greased cookie sheet.

You have to get the good stuff, which hasn't had saline injected into it. Baked or fried, it should be a little saltier than bacon, so it's best used with something like creamy scrambled eggs, which can be made blander.

[rik.livejournal.com]

The question is, if you're going to fry or cook something else with it, and that something else needs salt, can you omit the salt and get a transfer from the prosciutto, or is it goo engrained?

[(Anonymous)]

Procsciutto should most definitely be fried. But first you must dice it, then render the fat out of it by frying. Use it to make a vinegar based salad dressing over a wilted spinach salad. To serve with grilled asparagus, or put into a cream or wine sauce (my favorite is deglazing the rendered fat with a good marsala wine [but that leads to chicken marsala which is teh awesome]). Or use it instead of ham in chicken cordon bleu.

[thn1kk4man.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I'm anonymous from above.

[madeofmeat.livejournal.com]

I've heard prosciutto described as "engineering grade bacon."

[kragen.livejournal.com]

In Bacon: The Other White Heat, probably.

[madeofmeat.livejournal.com]

That would be it.