At 30 degrees north latitude, there is a mountain city called Enshi, which is a Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.

The folks here can't live without one food all year round: Tujia bacon. This is different from the ridicule of "little fresh meat" and "old bacon". It is the non-vegetarian food ration of the folks.

Passed down from generation to generation, cooked in a variety of ways, you will never get tired of it when you are close, but you will definitely miss it when you are far away.

In my hometown, every twelfth lunar month in the cold winter, the happiest thing for everyone is to kill the New Year pig. This is not only the face of the family, because it represents the surplus of the family's income and expenditure in the past year; it is also the family's next year.

The meaty food rations, the quality of life of children and adults, and the decency in dealing with people and things are all in the portion of this year's pig.

I still remember when I was a child, I was most afraid of the butchers. Watching their white knives go in and out with red knives, coupled with their occasional vicious pranks on children, was really scary.

But in fact, butchering a pig is a technical job. It is not an easy task to decompose pork in the style of "cooking a cow". According to the body structure of the pig, the fat and thin are matched, the length is even, and the part of giving favors is left to the person.

It must be on point and have content.

Except for the first meal of New Year's pork, which can be enjoyed to your heart's content, the rest of the day is under the control of the housewife and cook. Only by careful budgeting can we ensure the family's constant prosperity all year round and express our respect and friendship to our guests.

The steaming fresh pork is usually rubbed with salt before it cools down, left for about a day, and then hung up in strips with a pile of firewood underneath.

When smoking bacon, do not use dead branches and leaves, because the moisture in the meat will not evaporate and the surface of the meat will quickly produce oil; nor should you use a smoke stick with billowing smoke, which will make the meat smell too smokey.

The meat is heavy and has a black skin, which is difficult to clean and the color when cooked is not good. I still remember that my mother’s favorite is to use tree stumps or solid firewood with tighter wood. She said that this kind of fire is hard and smokeless, and the meat is dry.

It’s fast and the color is bright yellow after being smoked.

Usually, if you burn bacon every day, in about half a month, the bacon will reach the standard of collection. When you tap it with a fire tong, it will make a boom-boom sound, and it will be nearly a quarter lighter than when it was first hung.

The above completes the preparation of raw materials.

As for the cooking of bacon, the methods vary depending on the auxiliary ingredients and the name of the meat (different parts of pork have different names).

For example, pig head meat is usually boiled whole on New Year's Eve, and then the bones are kicked off. Pig ears and tongues are mostly eaten cold, pig head meat is stir-fried and eaten, and walnut meat is given to children directly after being cooked.

; Pork trotters are the first choice for celebrating festivals or entertaining important guests. They are considered the best meat and are usually eaten stewed; ribs, big bones, etc. are mainly eaten in a stew pot when entertaining guests; pork belly is fried and eaten

, the fat meat is boiled in oil and eaten... In short, the whole body of the pig is a treasure, and there are mainstream cooking methods.

The following are the necessary steps: 1. Choose the ingredients: Choose the appropriate part according to your dish plan. According to my mother’s words, choose a cut of meat, the portion is enough for a meal; 2. Roast bacon: open fire,

Use a large fire to burn the bacon skin, burn off the remaining pig hair, and cook the pork skin half-cooked; 3. Wash the bacon: The biggest trouble with smoked bacon is cleaning. After burning, there will be black dust and greasiness and during the smoking process.

You need to have enough patience and skill to deal with the smoke and dust; the cleaned bacon skin is usually yellow, which is different from the pale color of fresh meat, especially the texture after cooking, which is the flowing collagen. I don’t think there are any women.

Children will resist... 4. Cooking bacon: As for how to change the bacon, it completely depends on your dishes. Cooking the whole piece directly in the pot is suitable for subsequent slices and stir-fried dishes. This can maximize the

Preserve the aroma and taste of the bacon to a certain extent; chop it into small cubes and cook it in a pot, which is suitable for stewing and eating in a pot; cut the raw meat directly into small pieces, suitable for making dumpling fillings or frying... 5. Matching of auxiliary ingredients: bacon can be used

It’s all in vain. In my hometown, the classic stir-fry combinations are such as Zhaguang pepper, dried spring sprouts, black bean paste, garlic moss, dried radish, etc.; the stewed combinations are such as dried bamboo shoots, potatoes, carrots, day lilies, cabbage, etc.

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