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Canadian bacon

Canadian bacon

3 2.7
A lean round slice of cured pork loin that people eat with eggs
  • noun
  • /kəˈneɪdiən ˈbeɪkən/
  • US
translation icon : tocino canadiense
  • "Jamon," he expands, pronouncing the "j" like a breathy "h." "Back home," he continues in the same vein, "we call it Canadian bacon."
  • slice of Canadian bacon
  • eggs and Canadian bacon
  • Canadian bacon and pineapple

Examples

Synonyms

bacon
vsCanadian bacon
338 1.0

Thin, salty slices of meat from a pig usually fried for breakfast

is a cured boneless pork loin cut leaner and rounder than streaky cuts

Surface Forms

Morphology

Canadian + bacon

The compound 'Canadian bacon' is directly compositional: 'Canadian' modifies 'bacon' to indicate a variety or origin, so a learner who knows both words will understand it denotes a type of bacon associated with Canada. The precise culinary detail (that it’s from pork loin and leaner) is specialized knowledge but not required to infer that it is a kind of bacon.

Etymology

Canadian bacon may come from how people in Canada cut and sell this meat: they slice bacon from the pig's back, not the fatty belly, so the pieces are round and lean. So Americans used the country name 'Canadian' to mean the 'lean, round' kind of bacon, and today Canadian bacon means that lean, round style of bacon.