“Someone once said that martinis aren’t made with vodka, pesto is not made with spinach, and bacon isn’t made with anything but hog.”
That quote from a recent article that blessed the front page of the Food Section in the Idaho Press Tribune (that was a reprint from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) says it all.
Following are some excerpts from the article, which goes into detail about how bacon is made, various types of bacon, how to buy bacon, and how to cook bacon. It is a very good, comprehensive Bacon 101, and I’m impressed that my hometown newspaper felt it was worthy of taking up an entire page!
The Beauty of Bacon: Is it the salt, the smoke, the size of the slice?
“Bacon isn’t a food, it’s a flavor.” John Martin Taylor, author and teacher.
“Ham is a celebration. Bacon is every day.” Ari Weinzweig, owner of Zingerman’s.
“Bad bacon is an oxymoron. Some people even go so far as to call it the best food in the world. No wonder. A many-pleasured thing, bacon is salty, a bit sweet, smoky, and when it’s hot out of the skillet, both meaty and crisp. Even though almost everyone loves it, hardly anyone agrees on which brand or which style is the best. Like love, bacon is a personal thing.
“Some form of bacon is eaten in almost every country in the world. American-style “Canadian bacon” is lean back bacon, from the loin, and precooked. Real Canadian bacon from over the border is called peameal bacon and is sold uncooked and covered in pea or cornmeal. Irish bacon is a meaty, lean cut from the eye of the loin and a mainstay in a classic and hearty “Irish breakfast.” Pancetta is Italian salt-cured and herb-flavored bacon that is not smoked, and it is widely used in Italian cooking. Salt pork, that resident of Boston baked beans, is salt-cured fat with a smidgen of meat; it’s used primarily for seasoning dishes after it has been desalted. Fresh fatback is from the pig’s back and is usually rendered into lard.
“The Chinese developed techniques for curing pork some 4,000 years ago. Their bacon today is an intensely flavored product that is air-cured with soy, sugar and spices. It finds its way into many Asian dishes, but its piggy flavor is an acquired taste for Westerners.
“[When buying bacon] try to take a look at a whole slice, flipping the flap on the packaged brands or asking the butcher to hold up a slice or two. There should be an equal ratio of meat to fat, and it should look streaky with no large areas of fat.
“Cooking bacon is a matter of personal preference, but here are time-tested rules of thumb:
- Use room temperature bacon to prevent the raw bacon slices from tearing when you separate them.
- Cook bacon at a low temperature to prevent shrinking, curling and uneven cooking. Splattering comes from too-high heat and from low-end bacons that are pumped with water.
- Turn slices as often as you like. When slices are done to your preference, transfer them to paper towels to drain.
- Turn the bacon with tongs, a fork or, if you are good at it, chopsticks. If the bacon begins to curl, snip the edges with kitchen scissors.
- To make bacon in advance or to keep leftovers, refrigerate cooked slices and reheat in the oven.
- Spoon off drippings into a heatproof container between batches when you are cooking for a crowd.
- What about all that bacon grease? Keep it in a covered container in the fridge or freezer, and use a bit of it to add flavor to any number of dishes. Bacon dressing on German potato salad is classic. Add a dab to the skillet when making fried eggs. Bacon grease added to the fat for fried chicken is wonderful.
“Schaller and Weber — $6.99. If you want to get in touch with your inner butcher, this one’s for you. Have a good, sharp knife handy to hand-slice the thick, meaty solid hunk of bacon. The double-smoked bacon is meaty and chewy, with a good meat-to-fat ratio. This might be a good choice when a recipe calls for lardons, pieces a quarter-inch wide and 1-inch long. It tastes a lot like a good end of a ham.
“365 Whole Foods — $4.49. With no nitrates or nitrites in this uncured bacon, the flavor was bland with little detectable smoke or sweetness. It shrank to almost half. When I eat bacon, I want bacon flavor, not a health lesson.
“Sugardale Original — $3.98. This is the top-selling bacon brand at Giant Eagle. I can see why this is Everyman’s bacon. It had the least shrinkage (how do they do that?), and although it was a little on the sweet side with prominent smoky flavors, Sugardale said “bacon” with every bite.