[degsyhufc]

Has anyone tasted it? How different is it to other cured bacon?

I was watching A Question of Taste last night and this ingredient came up. Although this show is nothing special I have been enjoying it, mostly because I get nearly all the questions correct. I think I watch too many food programs

Anyway, they had a new round last night where they taste a recipe and had to guess the ingredients.
Most were obvious, a couple were tricky (kind of it could be either this or that so just plump for one of them)
but another was really harsh.
The dish was carbonara and it had a cured meat in it. Both teams answer was pancetta.
The actual answer was Guanciale which is cured pig cheek. They seemed to be very specific. I wonder if possibly bacon or cured pork would have been accepted.

[Dazzaschofield]

I wouldn't have thought bacon would have been accepted when pancetta wasn't. I thought pancetta was basically the same meat as gaunciale but the latter was more heavily smoked and contained a few 'secret spices' not found in pancetta.

Althought that's mostly conjecture as I can only say what I've read...I've never had the chance to taste it.

[degsyhufc]

I think it's generally accepted as being called bacon with bacon being the general term for certain cured pork products. AFAIK Pancetta is specifically belly pork. On US food programs they generally refer to it as cured unsmoked bacon but it can also be smoked.