You know being the Rabbi of Pork and having #baconcartel you would think all bacon is created equal. You go to the grocery store to get your bacon fix on, buy your bacon, cook your bacon and eat your bacon. Life is as right as rain, correct! Everything is better with bacon…until now. It is time to open your eyes to what really awaits you. Here is your first task, you have two pills to choose from, one red and one blue. Take the red one & keep your eyes closed to what you think bacon really is. Take the blue one, and I will open your eyes and your very existence to what bacon can really become for you! The choice is yours.
I am glad that you took the right one, prepare yourself for the great awakening. As you sit there reading this your body is being transported down the rabbit hole and when you finally awake from your deep slumber you’ve been put under you will see first hand what it really is to enjoy bacon. For years you have been living in the bacon matrix and I have awoken you to the reality that is now. You see some where twenty years ago or so there was just bacon. Now, there is BACON! What do I mean? Go to your grocery store and look at all the different brands that are out there and how many different styles there are. There is “butcher” cut, there is shingled, applewood, maple injected, sodium nitrate and phosphates and a whole slew of other ates. There is even uncured bacon….What the hell is that? Shall we dive deeper into the abyss?
In the retail market, the bacon manufacturers are looking to get a commodity belly out to you, the consumer as quick as possible. Why, you may ask, PROFITS! They know with X pieces of their bacon you will cook up that X piece package and go back for more. Are you wondering about the word commodity - it means what ever they can get their hands on to make the most bang for their buck! Now, does this mean that the bellies are the best of the best and the end product is just taste bud exploding - nope! It means a lot of times there are defects!!!! Welcome to the truth kids. Yes bacon has defects - MIND BLOWN Now, you maybe thinking there can’t be defects, my Sunday morning bacon is the best and its crispy and crunchy and crackling and and and….But my young patawans, there is so much for you to learn. Here is a for instance, ever notice when you go to a nice restaurant and they have great bacon, and then you go looking for it at the grocery store! Have you ever found that great tasting bacon, huh have you! No, because the wholesale market is different plain and simple. Don’t get me wrong they get bacon that have defects but not like the grocery stores.
Not all defects cause bacon to taste bad, per se. To understand where some defects come from you have to know how pigs are turned into bacon. SSSHHH IT’S MAGIC First lets start where bacon comes from, besides the pig, DUH! Bacon comes from the belly! It goes through a process that is cured and then smoked. After smoking the bacon is frozen, yes frozen. Why freeze it? So that it’s easy to slice & sell to you sell you, the average Joe consumer who does not know any better. The standard sizing is 18 to 22 pieces per pound. That means on average you are getting 21 pieces per pound. Now, just like humans, not every piggy’s belly is created equally. So, the frozen belly is sent into a machine pressed it and sliced. Now, follow me here, pressed, that means if it is longer then the conveyor belt then it is squeezed, that squeezing causes a defect often called webbing, spidering or lacy as a result of pressing. The fat pulls away from the meat and looks like webbing. While this does not hamper the taste, it does affect the cooking and the texture of the product. Fat is awesome and it adds the flavor to our taste buds, one of the reasons bacon is so addictive. If you screw with the fat, you screw with the overall flavor. You wouldn’t know this because you have been asleep all these years.
Another defect called dog ears or S curves are a direct cause of this squeezing as well. As the machine presses the belly in, it causes the ends of the bacon to either curve like an S or flop over like a dog’s ear. Another name is called hooks, and that gives the appearance of a fishing hook. Does this affect the flavor, well yes a little just like the webbing or lacy effect, this causes the bacon to cook unevenly which could cause the bacon to over cook, dare I say burn!!!! Have you ever noticed black lines across the top of your bacon, and thought hey my bacon looks like a tiger? If so, you’ve eaten bacon with tiger stripes. These are caused by injecting the meat with a curing solution or even smoke. The injection marks remain after the curing and smoking process. You may have noticed that the taste of the tiger striped bacon is not bad - & you’d be correct. For the most part tiger strips do not affect the flavor profile. Sometimes if the bacon has been injected by liquid smoke that can cause a smoker flavor which could be off putting to some.
Whew, you are hoping that is it, that there is nothing worse then that…right! Please, for the love of g-d no more, but wait there is more! There are two more defects that really affect the over all flavor profile of bacon. Meet the dark spot - a dark spot in the meat or fat of the bacon strip is more likely caused by stress to the animal. A dark spot is a blood clot. When the animal goes to get “harvested” (by the way we harvest fruits and vegetables we slaughter animals)if the animal is in distressed or is in “oh shit” mode and gets put down, there is a great chance the lactic acid caused a role in the final outcome of said piggy! The last one is the abscess, which can be found in either the meaty part or fatty part of the bacon as well. An abscess is caused by the same thing we get them from. A clogged pore or a skin cell that died off and the tissue around it stops getting blood - oh my that sounds yummy!! So, both of these defects cause a tinny or livery flavor to bacon.
What to do, what to do? Well, you can run and become a vegan and hate yourself, or you can just use your eyes and look for the defects in the packaging. Look to see if the meat, wait bacon has meat? Why yes, yes it does it’s the red stuff in the raw bacon. You want a good meat to fat ratio (so help me g-d if you do not know what fat is….stop eating bacon you don’t deserve it). The more meat to fat the better. The reason why is because there’s less shrinkage (George Costanza) I guess you can consider too much fat another defect because it means not enough bacon. Look for deep dark red spots and if it has them, move on. “But the brand I buy hides the bacon!” Then buy another brand! If there is too much paper and they are hiding the goods, there must be something wrong. In other words they are spending a lot more money on marketing their shitty product then making a great product. I guess that is another defect - marketing.
So, where do you go from here? To the grocery store of course to buy a better bacon. Avoid the defects and taste the difference. Let’s face it, before now, you ate bacon because you love bacon and like me, bacon gives you a lardon! Now, that you are finally awake, wait until I show you what I have in store for you next #baconcartel!
