Bacon and Beans for the Win

Two fingers thick and marbled with white fat the color of macaroon cream, the pork belly was slathered in salts and spices, leftover Barbera, and enough laboriously peeled cloves of Transylvania garlic to drive a stake through Dracula’s cold, black heart. Left for a couple of weeks to marinate and magically transform, this long flank of Italian bacon, called Tesa (meaning extended), is cured flat instead of being rolled into pancetta, thus a quicker time to my plate. Cut into slabs and laid to rest in the bottom of a cast iron pot, the meat is buried underneath a mound of Corona beans with onions and summer tomatoes, fiery smoked paprika, red wine and sweet sherry, and then nestled into a pile of hot wood coals overnight.