The American obsession with bacon is well-documented, but we’ve yet to make it a national dish, as our Ukrainian brothers have with salo, the unrendered pig fat snack that is sometimes cooked and incorporated into other dishes. But, apparently, sometimes not.
The Salo Museum is actually an installation in the Lviv Modern Art Museum. (The town of Lviv, by the way, is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.) It mostly contains objects sculpted out of fat and places in refrigerated cases for the duration: they’ve got tables and chairs, reproductions of other art pieces, and various body parts, the highlight of which is a human heart, arteries and all. We suppose that last one in particular is a statement of some sort.
Also part of the exhibit is a restaurant (natch), serving dishes like fat carpaccio (no, for reals), fat in chocolate, and sandwiches with descriptions like “(For the poor – two sandwiches with bacon with a red and black pepper, Stendhal-VIP – two sandwiches with bacon with a red and black caviar). Not hard to be poor and delicious. Rich to be tastier and more difficult. And who are you?” Uh-huh. So yes, the cafe is part of the art experience here.
You’ll need a break from looking at all that historical Ukrainian stuff anyway.
