I made penne with guanciale for dinner!! I used the fat from the guanciale, mixed it with egg yolks, lots of black pepper and finely grated Parm to make the sauce. 

I didn’t know I was supposed
cut the skin off the meat, so I got some hard pieces, but other than that, it came out pretty good for my first go around!

Here to push my boundaries and learn something new. I love my dog and I love food. I have more plants than I know what to do with and I’m lucky I live Hawaii! 

ashamed to admit i had to google guanchiale. where do you get it from?

49 countries and counting | from: /kauai love to: /adventure | previously @overpricedjpegs

It's cheek. 

Also not often sold here, but can be found. guanciale has a slightly different flavor profile than pancetta or regular bacon. For e.g. carbonara, only guanciale is (traditionally) used.

I am so sorry, but I’m gonna be an ass dick and quibble, bc guanciale is actually jowl. This is not common knowledge, as butchers and chefs will almost always refer to guanciale as cheek. 

I only feel compelled to say this bc the actual cheek (below the eye) is an exemplary cut of pork (my favorite), and is very different (muscle > fat). When cooked (I smoke them), they are pillowy, tender, and an experience to behold. In the US, they usually go to sausage unless special ordered through butchers who handle whole hog processing. 

If you can see your way through my pretentious diatribe to getting your hands on some, it is very much worth it. 

(Sry again for being that guy)

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100%. You are definitely not wrong. I’m just being a picky bastard with not quite enough emotional intelligence to correctly introduce you to this under-the-radar cut. (You clearly know about food, so you may already know about this.) It’s wildly underrated in the US. Bruh— it’s sooooo fkng good. 

Best thing I ever did for my bbq game is develop a relationship with the head butcher at Whole Foods in Sudbury, MA. Before the pandemic, she would get split hog heads and was happy to cut the cheeks out of all of them for me. And they were super cheap — like two bucks a pound maybe. They don’t get heads there anymore which is a damn shame. I hope you can find some. Please tell me if you run across any!

No worries, I love being incorrect so I can learn.

Many butchers consider it as the same part or refer to it as "jowl of the cheek". Hence me saying cheek. But you are absolutely correct.

In Hawaii, I could only find Pancetta. Recently our food scene has been evolving and so has the ingredients available to us, coming directly from our farms. 

I was soooo excited to find guanciale. Now I need to look for the actual cheek. Going to talk to the Whole Foods butcher about that.