Thursday, January 13, 2011

Spoiled.

With a Fresh Market right around the corner, the bacon in the Roseholme Cottage refrigerator is usually wrapped in butcher paper, not vacuum-sealed in plastic.

I didn't realize how spoiled I'd become until we picked up some regular ol', you know, bacon-type-bacon while we were out at the grocery store last night and cooked it up for breakfast this morning. It was good enough, I guess; I mean, it was bacon, you know? Like what you'd expect if you sat down in a decent breakfast joint and ordered bacon. But I've come to the conclusion that the thick-cut "market style" bacon from Fresh Market is the Platonic ideal, and all other bacon is just the shadow thrown on the cave wall...
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18 comments:

Joseph said...

I find that the big store's "platter style" bacon is pretty good. We also have a local butcher's shop here that has mighty fine bacon.

Agreed though, thick cut is the ONLY way to eat bacon.

This bacon actually makes me consider going to New York City.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjkrNhRfaWg

8:19 AM, January 13, 2011
John Peddie (Toronto) said...

One difference may be the water the processors are allowed to inject into the packaged stuff.

If you ever see "double smoked" bacon (sometimes found in "European" delis and butcher shops)it's a treat.

This message brought to you by the land of round bacon and erratic snowplough thieves.

8:30 AM, January 13, 2011
Lissa said...

I have never purchased anything at a butcher store, let alone fresh-cut bacon. I have only now realized that I'm living a half-life.

8:44 AM, January 13, 2011
aczarnowski said...

Eating butcher shop bacon as I read this. I agree 100%.

Amazing thing is I get it for less per pound than in the big box grocery store!

8:54 AM, January 13, 2011
Anonymous said...

Yup and nowadays I bake it in the oven on parchment paper. No skillet to clean...unless I'm making bacon gravy.

8:55 AM, January 13, 2011
elmo iscariot said...

We're lucky enough to live near a German pork store. Everything they say about the twice-smoked God Bacon is absolutely true.

8:58 AM, January 13, 2011
ViolentIndifference said...

*jealous*

WV: induba. Induba's time, more people had jobs.

9:31 AM, January 13, 2011
DaddyBear said...

You know, I didn't think I'd be reminded of the allegory of the cave when I got out of bed this morning.

Bacon good. Good bacon better.

10:03 AM, January 13, 2011
Scott said...

I have to admit that I have been converted to locally grown, butchered and smoked bacon and pork. We have a local butcher that does it all and it is heavenly. It reminds me of what my Grandmother had in rural MS, when I was a kid in the 60's.

10:40 AM, January 13, 2011
og said...

There are things for which thin cut bacon is preferable, like beef wellington. Otherwise, thick cut is better.

Around here, butchers buy bacon in the slab and cut themselves, chilled, on a round slicer. Commercial bacon is cut on a single, flat blade, frozen. the round blade on a butcher's slicer also tends to "open up" the meat, in my opinion, allowing it to cook more evenly and absorb some of the grease better. That may be my imagination, but I sure do like it.

Not that I'll turn down shrinkwrapped bacon either.

10:53 AM, January 13, 2011
BobG said...

Have to agree. Sort of like the difference in regular commercial beer and the ones from micro-breweries.

11:47 AM, January 13, 2011
Sarah said...

If you want to torture yourself, go buy a package of Corn King bacon. I did that ONCE. It will not happen again, as no bacon is better than that dreck.

12:01 PM, January 13, 2011
NotClauswitz said...

Thick-cut smoked apple-wood bacon! Chop it up and put it in your Osso Buco to ad another layer of flavor.

12:55 PM, January 13, 2011
Joanna said...

Every morning, I fry up a slice of uncured turkey bacon that I bought one-to-three weeks ago and defrosted one-to-eight days ago.

It's actually quite delish.

I have been eying the butcher-case fakin' bacon at the Fresh Market, though.

1:26 PM, January 13, 2011
Ancient Woodsman said...

Fox smokehouse thick-cut bacon is what's in my fridge. We raised our own back when and I've been a fan of Fox ever since.

http://oldehousesmokehouse.com/

Side note: one of the family is a city firefighter; she's got some wicked cancer and is being supported by the fire community worldwide.

http://www.firenews.org/temp/foxdecal.pdf

Not all that is good is bacon, but almost all that is bacon is good.

5:10 PM, January 13, 2011
Radiowave said...

Thomas Jefferson: "I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give."

+1 on Fresh Market bacon.

3:42 PM, January 14, 2011
d said...

Our local butcher has bacon at least two orders of magnitude better than the grocery store "basic" bacon.
The pork walks in the back, the smoker is on-site, and you can taste the delicious murder in every bite.
In fact, now that I think of it, there's a good chance that the stuff has never been frozen, except when I buy extra and freeze it.

They have it in BBQ flavor (the smaller slices from the end get that treatment) and peppercorn, which is _fantastic_, it is a reminder of the days when pepper was a valuable curing spice and worth an equal weight of gold.

And when I can't get Hasslebach's bacon, I have Lee Williams bacon from the other direction ... I've become a complete bacon snob, the same way finding a hobby roaster operating out of the back of his bicycle shop made me into a coffee snob.

7:21 PM, January 14, 2011
Anonymous said...

We raise our own pork. I have my own chickens and fresh eggs. I can't eat breakfast out because the food at home is so much better.

11:29 AM, January 19, 2011

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