What the rest of the world calls Canadian bacon, Canadians mostly call back bacon, and Toronto's version is peameal bacon: lean, boneless pork loin, wet cured, then rolled in a crust of yellow cornmeal. The name is a fossil. In the nineteenth century the cured loins were rolled in ground dried peas to help them keep, a practice credited to the Toronto pork packer William Davies, who started out at the St. Lawrence Market; cornmeal replaced the peas around the end of the First World War, but the name had already stuck.

The sandwich itself is a market tradition. Since the 1960s, St. Lawrence Market stalls have been griddling thick slices and piling them into kaiser rolls with mustard, and it has become one of the most recognizable foods of the city once nicknamed Hogtown. It is quick, generous and eaten on foot, everything a race day lunch should be.

The bacon

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb (680 g) peameal bacon
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil

The sandwich

Ingredients

• 4 kaiser rolls
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) yellow or honey mustard

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