I remember when I was a kid we butchered a hog. My grandma rendered the fat for lard. The pieces of fat leftover were good eats.
Pork belly is about 50% fat. The meat therein is very tender and cooks up beautifully in the oven. I smoked a side of pork belly last month and took the hunk of meat to my local butcher to slice into “bacon.” When I served my dad breakfast a couple weeks ago with that thin-sliced pork belly, the look on his face was one of pure ecstasy. He said it was the most delicious thing he’s ever consumed, and coming from an Italian man raised in Brooklyn, that was the biggest compliment I’ve ever received.