Top 5 Locally "Mummified" Foods

Cured, Pickled, Fermented

by Nick Bronson

Green Meadows hates to mess around — that's why they've captured the purest essence of what bacon should be. Sound grandiose? Maybe. But brace yourself before you settle down to enjoy a couple nicely crisped strips of this locally raised, salt-cured and smoked pork belly.

Pick up Di Bruno's deeply red and perfectly fatty duck prosciutto whether you're looking to blow minds at a dinner party or home alone snacking on cheese and wine. A thin slice will melt on your tongue in seconds, but it'll stay on your mind for days.

Though it's technically an appetizer, you and a friend could make a meal of a monstrous serving of this cold, satisfying treat. The sweet, sour, salty beef is piled high, displaying its proud grain and translucent fat, waiting to be slathered in dipping sauce and chewed slowly so that the flavors collide.

Fruit and fermented shrimp paste dressing may not be the first things to come to mind when conjuring up a salad, but Penang has been putting the two together forever. The fruit mixture, which varies, is escorted down to your belly by the real star of the plate — teeny-tiny finely fermented shrimp.

Few things in this world are as volatile and soothing as a bowl of kimchi stew. The broth is set ablaze by the addition of Korea's favorite pickled cabbage. Chunks of that kimchi along with pork, tofu and onion float together in synchronized bliss. It's the perfect thing to kick a cold or flu squarely in the ass.