Raw Pork Fat Sandwich

A slice of bread spread with lard - Source: Wikipedia

In our time where obesity & overweight are common, and heart related disease remains top killer; many are cautious on excessive fat intake, and therefore it is even unthinkable to take in uncooked animal fat or raw pork fat.

Source: mirror.co.uk

During the 19th century & early 20th century, lard or rendered pork fat was popular & used similarly as butter in many parts of Europe & North America. In fact, in certain regions or time where vegetable oil or dairy fats were rare, lard was usually used as a substitute, as in WW2, or consumed as a spread on bread.

The Ukrainian Salo, cured pork fat, is sometimes eaten raw, even during the slaughtering; the warm fat may be taken with a dip of salt & a shot of vodka.

Ukrainian Salo - Source: tasteatlas.com

In China, lard has always been a cooking staple for many centuries. A traditional simple Southern Chinese rice cuisine (or lard rice豬油拌飯) is the used of lard mixing with cooked rice & soy sauce. Popular daily noodle dishes consumed by Overseas Chinese in Singapore & Malaysia are often sprinkled with crispy fried lard.

Lard rice

Dry noodle with fried lard - Source: kakalinawak.blogspot

Pigs played an important cultural role in the history of China, partly they were easy to rear, required fewer spaces, and more affordable protein source especially to the poor.

As such, early Chinese immigrants in Borneo brought along the Pig farming culture with them, as with other traditions & customs.

Source: dialogochino.net

As subsistence farmers in those time, most families had few pigs, pork was then still a luxury ‘dish’ & mostly consumed only in traditional Festivals; pork fat or lard was then used as cooking staple throughout the year.

As economic sense, every parts of the pig were consumed to minimise wastage where the meat normally reserved for occasions or the rich, and the leftover or cheaper parts became the delicacies of the poor.

The Chinese character (家), which means both home & family, became better sense to those early immigrants settling in the new home; the top of the character (宀) represents a house, and the (豕) below represents a pig.

In other parts of the world where lard was used as bread spread, a different version of cuisine appeared in Borneo before and after WW2, the raw pork fat sandwich!

Raw pork fat - Source: eatmeat.com.au

The pork fat chosen was mostly from the visceral fat surrounding the kidneys or inside the loin where there was less pork flavour, ideally for making high grade lard also.

The fat was taken right off the pig, during the slaughtering, the warm fat was then sandwiched with bread or similar Chinese bun and eaten completely raw! Some believed that such recipe helped supplementing the malnutrition body as it was quite typical during the time.

 Ham sandwich - Source: delish.com

The history & cause of the Raw Pork Fat Sandwich was not known, this might have originated accidentally from early poor subsistence farmers & immigrants.

My late father told me this long faded secret recipe because he was a butcher & he tried the Sandwich once!