What is the difference between gammon, ham and bacon?

The confusion is real and it is a British labelling quirk rather than a failure to pay attention. The same piece of pig can be sold under two different names depending only on whether somebody has already cooked it, and the useful question at the counter is always the same: does this still need cooking.

Step by step

1. Start from the cut.Gammon and ham both come from the hind leg. Back bacon comes from the loin along the back. Streaky bacon comes from the belly. Everything else follows from where on the pig it started.
2. Understand gammon.The hind leg, cured — traditionally in brine, sometimes dry-salted — and sold raw. It must be cooked, usually by simmering or slow roasting, and it is then often glazed. Gammon steaks are slices of the same thing and also need cooking.
3. Understand ham.The same leg, either cured and then cooked so it is ready to eat, or dry-cured and air-dried for long enough that it is safe without cooking — Parma, serrano, jamón. A cooked gammon joint, once cooked, is properly called ham. The word describes the finished state, not a different animal part.
4. Understand bacon.Cured pork from the back or the belly, sold raw and always cooked before eating. Back bacon has the lean eye of loin with a tail of fat; streaky is the layered belly. Middle bacon is the whole thing in one rasher.
5. Read the cure on the packet.Dry-cured means salt rubbed on and time. Wet-cured or brine-injected means salt solution pumped in, which is faster and cheaper and adds weight. Wet-cured bacon is the kind that leaks white liquid into the pan and refuses to crisp.
6. Know what smoked and unsmoked mean.Smoked is cold-smoked after curing, giving a firmer texture and a smoky flavour. Unsmoked, sometimes called green bacon, is the cure alone. Neither is more or less cooked than the other.
7. Check whether it needs soaking.Traditionally cured gammon could be very salty and was soaked overnight. Most modern gammon is cured mildly and does not need it. The pack usually says; if it does not, ask the butcher, or taste the first cooking water and change it if it makes you wince.

Tips

• Prosciutto crudo, serrano and other air-dried hams are safe uncooked because the salt, time and drying make them so, not because they were heated. Do not extrapolate that to any other raw cured pork.
• Gammon is one of the best-value joints in the shop for feeding a crowd, and it is as good cold as hot.
• The nitrite in most cures is what keeps cured pork pink after cooking. Cooked gammon staying pink is the cure, not undercooking — use a probe rather than the colour.

Common mistakes

• Eating gammon or bacon without cooking it — Both are raw cured pork. The cure is not the same process as the long dry-curing that makes a Parma ham safe to eat as it is.
• Judging a cooked gammon by colour — Nitrite-cured pork stays pink at any temperature. The pink tells you it was cured, not that it is underdone.

Questions people ask