Parts of a pig

Going to the wet market early this morning with my mum and nanny to shop for cuts of pork to cook lobak was a comic act in itself. The old granny manning the butcher must have been very amused by this "westernised" slip of a girl shopping at the wet market (although there were a few caucasians shopping there with children too, and old grannies nowadays have picked up some English, at least enough to know which cut of meat to sell you!). I only started cooking seriously abroad, so I only know the English names for different cuts of meat. But apparently old granny and nanny were good friends, so old granny patiently explained to me what the different pork cuts were called in Chinese:

Belly = San cheng rou (mandarin)
Shoulder = Zhu zhang rou (mandarin)*
Blade = Gap sum (cantonese)*

* I might have got these two mixed up. Old granny wasn't very clear, but she was emphatic that zhu zhang rou was the best cut for lobak.

Buying meat in US grocery stores to cook for The Boy's family was another comic skit altogether. But I had The Boy's dad with me, and he hunts, so he knows his meat. So all I had to do was explain to said dad what I wanted in English and he translated it to American for me. The butcher was very amused indeed, and must have been wondering what weird and wonderful things this small Asian chick was going to do with his meat. So this will be very useful for future reference, I think:

British cuts of pork

American cuts of pork

Parts of the cow coming up soon!