Last night, while talking with my cousin, I somehow fixated on the topic of meats. I was saying how I don’t really eat beef, when I can help it, but I love pork. She was saying she did like ham and we agreed we sorta liked bacon, though I dislike it more than most. I then began explaining my love for pork chops and she said she did like pork tenderloin but did NOT eat porkchops.
Wait a second… I thought. Pork tenderloin IS porkchops. Just in different form. You see, the meat that is found in the pork chop is a round cylindrical loin that runs the length of the animal. When at the butcher you will typically see the animal before the cuts are made and notice that there are many a chop with bone that surround this loin.
When you buy a pork chop in a store, you are getting a small cross section of that loin plus the bone its a attached to. Other times you can get a thicker center cut of the chop often without this bone called a medallion. And then there is the glorious pork
tenderloin. This is the same exact loin section of the animal but but uncut and without the bones that encase it. I found this helpful page to further explain. I dont know why this is fascinating, but to me I guess I’d like to know what I am eating.
And to see a helpful diagram of what I am talking about look below.
This somehow reminds me of a great quote from the Simpsons:
Homer: Are you saying you’re never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.