hours to tenderize it, coupled with periods of approximately twenty minutes at a high temperature at the beginning or end of the cooking period to harden off the rind or "crackling". For a barbecued pork belly, the meat is seasoned and slow-cooked in a pan by indirect heat on a covered barbecue, on a bed of mixed vegetables to which (hard) cider is added. Heat is again varied to produce tender meat with hard crackling. Pork belly is also used in the UK to make streaky bacon. United States In American cuisine, bacon is most often made from pork bellies. Salt pork is made from pork bellies also, which is commonly used for making soups and stews. Futures The pork belly futures contract became an icon of futures and commodities trading. It is frequently used as a pars pro toto for commodities in general and appears in several depictions of the arena in popular entertainment, such as the 1974 film For Pete's Sake and the 1983 film Trading Places. Inaugurated on August 18, 1961, on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), frozen pork belly futures were developed as a risk management device to meet the needs of meat packers who processed pork and had to contend with volatile hog prices, as well as price risks on processed products held in inventory. The futures contracts were useful in guiding inventories and establishing forward pricing. The unit of trading was 20 short tons () of frozen, trimmed bellies. (Bellies typically weigh around .) Pork bellies can be kept in cold storage for an extended period, and generally, the frozen bellies were most actively traded. Spot prices varied depending on the amount of inventory in cold storage and the seasonal demand for bacon, and the origin of the pork. In the past, the former drove the prices of the futures as well. In more recent years, pork belly futures' prominence declined; eventually, they were among the least-traded contracts on the CME and were delisted for trading on July 18, 2011. See also References External links Cuts of pork Commodity markets World cuisine