Pork belly
Encyclopedia
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
derived from the belly
Abdomen
In vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...
of a pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
. Pork belly is popular in Asian cuisine, and forms a part of many traditional European dishes such as the Alsatian Choucroute garnie
Choucroute garnie
Choucroute garnie is a famous Alsacian recipe for preparing sauerkraut with sausages and other salted meats and charcuterie, and often potatoes.Although sauerkraut is a traditionally German and Eastern European dish, the French annexation of...
, the Swiss Berner Platte, and the German Schlachtplatte
Schlachtplatte
-Track listing:# Voruss – 3:13# Scharlachrot – 4:24# Am Schärme – 2:24# Bälpmoos – 4:42# Schuumbad 1 – 1:27# Salz & Schtahl – 1:52# Padänt Ochsner – 1:14# No geit's – 2:03# Schuumbad 2 – 1:34# Mittschiffs – 2:25# Pfeuti – 3:26# Domino – 1:52...
. In the United States
Cuisine of the United States
American cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from the United States of America. European colonization of the Americas yielded the introduction of a number of ingredients and cooking styles to the latter...
, bacon
Bacon
Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
is most often made from pork bellies.
A 100-gram serving of pork belly typically has 518 calories. The calorie breakdown is: 92% fat (53.01g), 0% (0 g) carbohydrates, and 8% (9.34g) protein.
This cut of meat is enormously popular in Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine
Chinese cuisine is any of several styles originating in the regions of China, some of which have become highly popular in other parts of the world – from Asia to the Americas, Australia, Western Europe and Southern Africa...
and Korean cuisine. In Chinese cuisine, it is usually diced, browned then slowly braised with skin on, or sometimes marinated and cooked as a whole slab. Pork belly is used to make Slowly Braised Pork Belly (紅燒肉) or Dongpo pork (東坡肉) in China (Sweet and Sour Pork
Sweet and sour pork
Sweet and sour pork is a Chinese dish that is particularly popular in Cantonese cuisine and may be found all over the world. A traditional Jiangsu dish called Pork in a sugar and vinegar sauce is considered its ancestor....
is made with pork fillet). Koreans cook Samgyeopsal
Samgyeopsal
Samgyeopsal is a popular Korean dish. Commonly served as an evening meal, it consists of thick, fatty slices of pork belly meat . The meat, usually neither marinated nor seasoned, is cooked on a grill at the diners' table...
on a grill with garlic
Garlic
Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...
, often accompanied by soju
Soju
Soju is a distilled beverage native to Korea. Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter due to sugars added in the manufacturing process, and more commonly consumed neat.Most brands of soju are made in South Korea...
. Uncured whole pork belly has more recently become a popular dish in restaurants in the United States as well.
Pork belly futures
Inaugurated in 1961, the pork belly futures contractFutures contract
In finance, a futures contract is a standardized contract between two parties to exchange a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed today with delivery occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date. The contracts are traded on a futures exchange...
was iconical for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is an American financial and commodity derivative exchange based in Chicago. The CME was founded in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board. Originally, the exchange was a non-profit organization...
(CME) and futures trading in general, becoming a staple of the futures market in popular media (such as the movie Trading Places
Trading Places
Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film, of the satire genre, directed by John Landis, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upper class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet...
). In recent years it became amongst the least-traded contracts on the CME, and was eventually delisted for trading by the CME on July 18, 2011.
The unit of trading was 20 short tons (40000 lbs) of frozen, trimmed bellies. Pork bellies can be kept in cold storage for an extended period of time, and generally it is the frozen bellies that were most actively traded.
Trading in frozen pork bellies futures was developed as a risk management device to meet the needs of meat packers who processed pork and had to contend with volatile hog prices as well as price risks on processed products held in inventory. The futures contracts were useful in guiding inventories and establishing forward pricing. Bellies typically weigh around 6 kilograms (13.2 lb).
Spot prices vary depending on the amount of inventory in cold storage and the seasonal demand for bacon as well as the origin of the pork; the former drove the prices of the futures as well, back in the day.