Some Culinary Musings on Pork
Pork was the staple meat of my boyhood, and that was true not just in my family but for country folks across much of the Southeast in general. While a pig offered plenty of variety in terms of “meat on the table,” with dishes including liver mush, backbones and ribs, pork chops, fried tenderloin, cured ham, sausage and more, the part of the critter which saw the widest use was unquestionably what we knew as streaked meat (also known as salt port, fat back, side meat, streak o’ lean and by other names). Few indeed were the vegetable dishes lacking some streaked meat as a part of the cooking process. With wild hogs becoming increasingly plentiful, hunters might want to give careful thought to going “whole hog” by processing everything. Heres a little bit on milk gravy.
STREAKED MEAT MILK GRAVY
Fry several pieces of streaked meat until they are crisp and brown. Remove the meat from the frying pan and set aside. With the grease still hot add flour and stir steadily, reducing heat if necessary to be sure the flour does not scorch, until brown. Once your flour is brown (the Cajuns call this a roux but I have never heard the term used in connection with making mountain gravy), add milk and stir until the desired thickness is reached, keeping mind that the gravy will continue to thicken after you remove it from the pan. You can, if desired, crumble the fried streaked meat and add it to the gravy just before removing it from the pan. Serve piping hot with cornbread or biscuits.
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In company with his late wife, Ann, Jim Casada wrote a number of cookbooks focusing on game or foods from the wild. One of those, The Complete Venison Cookbook, is available from him or the Sporting Classics Store. Jim’s next book, Fishing for Chickens: A Smokies Food Memoir, is due out from the University of Georgia Press in mid-2022. He is currently taking advance reservations for copies. To reserve a copy or learn more about his many other books, include his recent multi-award winning A Smoky Mountain Boyhood: Memories, Musings, and More, visit his website at www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com or e-mail him at jimcasada@comporium.net.
Hundreds of kitchen-tested recipes make this cookbook your answer to a table of hungry hunters or out-of-town guests! Even the choosiest of eaters will enjoy the savory variety of recipes from crockpot cookery to venison on the grill.
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