Pork jowl

Pork jowl is a cut of pork from a pig's cheek. Different food traditions have used it as a fresh cut or as a cured pork product (with smoke and/or curing salt). As a cured and smoked meat in America it is called jowl bacon or, especially in the Southern United States, hog jowl or joe meat. In the US, hog jowl is a staple of soul food, and there is a longer culinary tradition outside the United States; the cured non-smoked Italian variant is called guanciale.