Salt Pork consists of salt-cured fat from the back, sides, or belly of a hog. In frontier days, salt pork was an important source of calories aa well as the salt lost in sweat during hot weather or hard work. An energy packed food source, salt pork contains roughly 3,400 calories and more than 6,400 miligrams of sodium per pound. Frowned upon in our modern, air-conditioned society, fat calories and salt were both essential to survival in the Old West.

Photo by Bob Lemen. All rights reserved.