Smoked, Peppered Sliced Hog Jowls

Last Saturday at a book meeting at Art's we tasted a new product he had stumbled across in the bacon section at HEB: Smithfield Country Cured Hog Jowls, Smoked Sliced, Peppered. I had visions of guanciale when he emailed me about the discovery earlier, and looked forward to the sampling.

He fried up a few slices for us to taste. 

Thoughts: Love the texture, which is dense and slightly chewy, especially the crackling rind. It has deep smoky, porky flavor, but is marred by too much salt. Sticks of this in a bar, and folks would be drinking twice what they normally do. We did decide that it would be absolutely perfect for a pot of beans, or a big wad of simmering collard greens. Think of it as refined smoked ham hock...definitely superior to salt pork.