Bacon – Pork up your Knowledge

     What’s the best way to buy bacon?  The basic way is to pork up your knowledge on where bacon came from, the best forms to use and the price.  Before the birth of the freezer, people would soak the fabulous pork in a brine of salt water to preserve it.  The brine delivers a defense of microorganisms avoiding the people from getting very sick if it had spoiled.  Smoking is another way to reserve the bacon.  It prolonged the life just as much as brining.  Once the brining and smoking took off, we got imaginative!

Adding a spice here and there and smoking it with a specific wood was an experiment with flavors.  The most commonly used spices and woods were:  black pepper, jalapenos, juniper, garlic, apple wood and mesquite.  We can buy bacon already spiced and cured or for the chef in your home; they can research with their own spices and develop there own flavors as well.
In purchasing bacon at a specialty meat shop, you will have a variety to choose from; pancetta (from Italy), duck bacon (thinly sliced and full bodied taste encased with a large amount of fat and cooks very fast), Irish bacon (from the loin of the pig, not as rich in fat but can still be brined and sliced thinly for frying as traditional bacon is).

Many types of entrée’s or side dishes are enhanced with bacon, whether it’s crumbled on top or wrapped with bacon.  Shrimp and scallops can be enfolded in bacon for classic hors d’oeuvres.  You will want the bacon to be crunchy, choose the best, low in fat such as the Irish bacon.  Bacon wrapped around a filet mignon is perfect because the filet is mild and very tender and the crispness enhances the flavor of the filet.  If you are roasting a turkey, use bacon ends in your stuffing.  Baking bacon on a broiling pan or cookie sheet with a rack will produce the same aroma and taste as if you were frying it on top of the stove.  But before you use it in your stuffing make sure its cooked first.  Just keep in mind when you buy bacon, the flavor and aroma will get their mouths watering for more no matter what dish you are serving.





You Had Me at Bacon