> I'd like to hear from the non-U.S. folks on this one, if I may.
>
> I was thinking just now about how every country seems to have their own kind of bacon. Well, three of them anyway. In the U.S., we have the best kind -- strips of meat and fat that, when you cook them, lose half their volume and make a tasty topping for burgers, side for eggs, BLT's, etc.
>
> We also have (I think only because I live so close to the Canadian border because I don't ever remember seeing it when I lived in Virginia) what's called Canadian Bacon, which is more like ham than U.S. bacon, cut into strips or flakes -- it's a little tougher than ham but has a similar taste.
>
> When I lived in England, we had English bacon, which is a truly bizarre food. (I suppose the English think the same about American bacon.) It *looks* like American bacon before it's cooked, but you can fry it and fry it and fry it, and it won't darken and shrivel up like it's supposed to. It'll retain its volume, barely darken at all, and you eat it with a fork and knife by itself. I can't say it was my favorite.
>
> My questions:
>
> (1) To Canadians (that means you, Wolfspirit), what do you get if you just order "bacon" in a restaurant? Do you get what we call "Canadian bacon," and if so, do you also have "American bacon" or something that refers to our kind of bacon? Or do you still have to say "Canadian bacon" to get Canadian bacon? Or is it Canadian bacon like a lot of misnamed foods in that it is not Canadian at all?

Yeah, well, bacon. I guess those admittedly tasty "fried, nitrate-cured, articially-smoked strips of salted fatty pork belly or back" are what we Canucks call bacon, too. I always wondered why folks like their bacon completely CHARRED ("Darken and shrivel up like it's supposed to"?!?). I prefer lightly cooked microwave bacon, done so it's not too crispy, myself.

On the other hand, I've seen that other stuff you mentioned referred to as "Canadian bacon", occasionally; but certainly not within Canada. We call it "breakfast ham". McDonalds sells it at breakfasttime as a ham in thinly sliced 4-inch rounds, alongside buttered pancakes, sausage, eggs, real bacon, and hash browns. Cholesterol city. Mm-hmm.


> (2) To anyone else outside of these three countries (Brunnen-G, Paul A., etc; you know who you are), what kind(s) of bacon do you have there, and what do you call them? Do you have any of the above, or do you have a fourth kind I don't know about?

Er...do you know what my Roumanian mechanical engineer recently ate for lunch for an entire week? A four-inch cured salted block of PURE PORK LARD. Along with 4 eggs and 2 raw green bell peppers. Every day for a week. And how about the recipe for medallions of lean pork tenderloin, slowly baked in 2 pounds of rendered goose fat for 8 hours?


> ("Bacon bacon bacon bacon THERE! What's it SAY? I can't READ!")

(-: I just HAVE to see that commercial. Starring the dog nose-cam!

Wolfspirit