A wooden board holds a large slab of skin-on pork belly, a strip of tenderloin, a pork hock and two trotters, a cleaver rests at the edge, and scallions, ginger and a bowl of coriander lie beside them.
Pork, cut by cut
Introduction
Pigs as food: breeds, cuts, blood and offal.
Pork means the meat of the pig as an ingredient: the breeds, cuts such as belly, tenderloin, hock and trotter, and blood and offal. Pig remains with clear domestic features, about 8,500 years old, have been found at sites such as Jiahu and Cishan. Places call the cuts and by-products by different names; pig blood, for example, is called zhu hong in Guangdong and Hong Kong and blood tofu in much of the mainland. Cured pork belongs to Cured Pork and Sausage, ham has a class of its own, and dishes cooked from pork belong to the regional cuisines.