Every winter month, people in rural areas of Hunan have to slaughter their own pigs, invite relatives and friends to have a pig-killing meal, then coat the remaining pork with a layer of white wine, then coat it with fried pepper-flavored rice salt, and put it in a vat for pickling. Put three or two salts and a proper amount of pepper into every ten Jin of meat. Turn over the jar at noon every day and marinate for five days.
When the brine comes out (marinated for 5 days), wash the brine with hot water of about 80 degrees and hang it in the woodshed (Changde is called the wing room, which is specially used for firewood, fire and bacon). On the first day, it was roasted with a big fire, and then smoked with fireworks produced by burning firewood every day. From time to time, grapefruit and orange peel will be added and burned on the brazier. You can't eat it until the Spring Festival. The bacon smoked in this way has been hung in the woodshed and will not go bad after eating in the next summer, so it doesn't need to be kept in the refrigerator.
The most authentic bacon is very bad now. The best bacon is this. When you soak in warm water, wash, steam and cut everything, the fat layer is completely transparent and the lean meat part is dark purple. There is a special smell of wood.
The production process of bacon is generally as follows: first, cut the meat into large pieces, sprinkle with salt, sprinkle with fried pepper, marinate for 7 to 10 days, then hang it to dry, and then smoke it. In my hometown, cypress technology is used to build sheds and smoke them. Generally, it is good to turn black and yellow. Now it is used for sale. First, there is not enough time for curing and smoking. Second, the skill of cypress is hard to find, and the surface is beautiful, which is not the case when steaming.
I haven't figured out how long it will take to reach the best. I heard it will take a few days. It'd better take a long time.
It's hard to eat the best bacon now. I used to eat it when I was a child. It was sent directly from China at that time. A few years ago, when I went to the countryside, a farmer built a house and took out bacon to help the working villagers. It was taken from the pendant in front of the stove. It is said that it has been hung up for half a year, and I happened to be a guest there. I feel the smell of bacon after eating for an hour again. It's delicious. Last year, someone brought some from the countryside, which was not bad, but it was still a little worse than before.