Pork Belly
Pork belly or Belly Pork is a boneless and fatty cut of meat from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is particularly popular in Hispanic, Chinese, Danish, Norwegian, Korean, Thai and Filipino cuisine.
Korea
In Korean cuisine, pork belly with the skin removed is known as samgyeop-sal (삼겹살), while pork belly with the skin on is known as ogyeop-sal (오겹살). The literal meaning of samgyeop-sal is ‘three-layered meat’ as sam (삼; 三) means ‘three’, gyeop (겹) means ‘layer’, and sal (살) means ‘flesh’, referring to what appears to be three layers that are visible in the meat. The word o (오; 五) in ogyeop-sal means ‘five’, referring to the five-layered pork belly meat with the skin.
According to a 2006 survey by National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, 85% of South Korean adults stated that their favourite slice of pork is the pork belly. The survey also showed 70% of recipients eat the meat at least once a week. The high popularity of pork belly makes it one of the most expensive parts of pork. South Korea imports wholesale pork belly from Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries for the purpose of price stabilization as imported pork is much cheaper than domestic. The South Korean government planned to import 70,000 tons of pork belly with no tariff in the second half year of 2011. Thus, importation of pork belly was expected to expand.
Pork belly is consumed both at restaurants and at home, grilled at Korean barbecue, or used as an ingredient for many Korean dishes, such as bossam (boiled pork wraps) and kimchi-jjigae (kimchi stew).
