Bacon

[Nanohedron]

One thing that always bothered me about bacon is the grease. I have never found a good use for the half cup of fat that is left over from baking the stuff.

I don't bake my bacon - although I see no reason why that shouldn't be done - but no matter about that. As to uses for the leftover grease, I've got a can of the stuff waiting in the fridge, so I guess it's a matter of personal taste. I prefer my eggs (fried, scrambled, omelettified) cooked in the stuff though I expect I wouldn't with a soufflé, and since I can't abide soufflés for their pointlessly ethereal insubstantiality, to say nothing of the extra work and the need for a specialised dish to cook them in, not much lost, there. Hashbrowns go famously with bacon fat, too. It's a must in Nano's kitchen. Sometimes I've even added a bitty dollop to spag sauce for that extra bit of je ne sais quoi, and it can work quite well. You just need to take care not to overdo that sort of thing; it should be less than the hint of a whisper, not something obvious.

Mind you, I only cook up 'Merkin bacon about once every few months, and although I consider the fat a staple, I definitely don't cook with it every day. I'm more likely to boil my eggs than fry them.

[emmline]

I've got a bunch of bacon from Polyface in the pan right now. Humanely and naturally raised ("Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health"), humanely slaughtered, cured with nothing but salt and pepper and sugar. Delicious as all hell.

That sounds like a really good idea.

[dwest]

I've got a bunch of bacon from Polyface in the pan right now. Humanely and naturally raised ("Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health"), humanely slaughtered, cured with nothing but salt and pepper and sugar. Delicious as all hell.

I use to buy from Polyface 'cause they do treat their animals with respect. But Joel doesn't seem to have much use for science or scientists, a shame because I miss the place. I still appreciate their style of animal husbandry and wish more farmers would treat their animals the way they do at Polyface.

[jim stone]

I've got a bunch of bacon from Polyface in the pan right now. Humanely and naturally raised ("Respecting and honoring the pigness of the pig is a foundation for societal health"), humanely slaughtered, cured with nothing but salt and pepper and sugar. Delicious as all hell.

I've checked the site and can't find so far what 'humanely slaughtered'
amounts to in the case of pigs. Anyone know?

By the way water buffalo are really dumb.
They stand there together and say to each
other: 'Hey, look at that. They knocked down Louie!
Hey look at that, they knocked down Sally....'
It never occurs to them that they are in danger.

Once, walking down a street in Katmandu, I heard the
thunder of hooves behind me. Turning I found a
water buffalo about a foot away from me, running
full tilt. I somehow managed to dive out of the way.
Around the corner came five men with ropes,
chasing the beast who, making his way
to the river, fell in with other buffalo drinking
in the shallows and was there rounded up.

Apparently this was the Albert Einstein of water
buffalo, the one in thousands who managed to connect
the dots. But his memory wasn't long enough...

But pigs KNOW--they know long before
it happens. Imagine you were going to have
your throat cut tomorrow morning.

[dwest]

I have been at Polyface multiple times when they have slaughtered and processed their animals, we have friends three miles south of their farm where we may actually farm in a few years. They are as humane as these things can go and much, much more so than many others. I too have a certain discomfort about pigs as food and also a definite affection for pigs. The Saladin's place is a much nicer place for pigs to live than many other places I have visited. Pigs are clean animals and Polyface recognizes that. All in all I would prefer to only eat animals I have raised or hunted myself, except road kill of course.

[CHasR]

I don't see that there is much place for bacon in a healthy diet.

my Glaswegian uncle, a RN WWII sailor and blacksmith by trade, smoked like a lum, used to make his eggs like this every morning:

slice off aprox 1/4 -1/2 inch slab of bacon fat,
melt in saucepan
add 3 eggs & 3 slices bacon when fat liquifies
when eggs set, remove & plate, continue to cook bacon,
light fag on gas burner,
remove bacon when done, & plate.
serve with stewed tea, & toasted tattie scones with butter.
He lived to be 88.



.

[CHasR]

Imagine you were going to have
your throat cut tomorrow morning.

in that case,
then i'd eat as much damn bacon as I could!

[talasiga]

.....

Still, I will agree with Scheky and Fly on the basis of bacon being a non-duplicatable experience. Even having abstained for 15 years, the smell is tantalizing, the crispy-crunchness is mouth-watering.

If I may, as a humble vegetarian, suggest, that
rightly roasted pumpkin seeds have a bacony flavour.

How do I know this? I ate bacon in my late childhood.

[WyoBadger]

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to compare with the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing. Except the taste of fried bacon and coffee.

Here's the most humane method of slaughter I've ever heard. I might try something similar when we put some chickens and maybe a goat or two in the freezer this fall:

"Every spring, Bob buys a new lamb, and the lamb is always named Buddy. Buddy mows and fertilizes the lawn in exchange for food and beer. Buddy drinks beer out of a nippled baby bottle...Bob, a former marine, can't bring himself to personally slaughter the lamb. It happens this way: one day, when the leaves on the aspen have turned yellow and the grass has stopped growing, Buddy downs as many bottles of beer as he wants. After Buddy passes out, he is taken on a short drive and comes back several days later, wrapped in little white packages of freezer paper." from Hold the Enlightenment by Tim Cahill.

If a critter has to die...well...

As for bacon, I have all but eliminated it from my diet, too. Used to eat it several times a week when I covered a lot more miles in the mountains than I do now. Now it's for special occasions.

But try this: Take a smallish mushroom. Wrap it in bacon, secured with a toothpick. Dab on a bit of good BBQ sauce. Broil in the oven until bacon is crisp and sauce is ever-so-slightly charred. mmmmm. A large mouthful of cholestorolly goodness.

Tom

[Walden]

[Ro3b]

Sorry, forgot to include a recipe:

Tartiflette

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and slice one and a half pounds of potatoes. Bring a pint of cream to simmer in a pan, add salt and pepper, and cook the potatoes in that.

Cut a quarter-pound of good slab bacon into cubes and fry, adding a little chopped onion when enough fat has rendered.

In a buttered gratin dish, layer the bacon and potatoes. Split a wheel of Reblochon cheese laterally and place one of the halves rind-side-up on top of the spuds and bacon. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown and everything is melty and bubbly.

It's technically a side dish, but what the hell. Call it two servings and make sure you have a good bottle of wine on hand to wash it down with.

[Pazziato]

As to uses for the leftover grease, I've got a can of the stuff waiting in the fridge, so I guess it's a matter of personal taste.

I save leftover bacon grease to rub on (slather on?) a prime rib roast before roasting. I try to bathe the roast in the bacon fat -- it works out really well.

Now I am really really really hungry, and all I have at the office is peanut butter.

[mutepointe]

Funny story related to bacon grease. True story.

I had always seen my mom and everyone else collect old grease in a coffee can by the stove, so when I moved out on my own I did the same thing. When the can got filled to the top, I would warm the grease and when the grease liquified, I would pour it down the drain. My wife saw me do that after we had been married for quite a few years and told me that folks just through the grease in the garbage. We moved around a lot, at least every year, so I never had to deal with the plumbing problems afterwards.

[chrisoff]

Here I must pipe up and clarify that the aforementioned baconologists are, of course, referring to 'Merkin bacon, not the other products you get by the same name in Canada, Ireland, or Britain.

We have your kind of bacon as well, we just call it streaky bacon. The bacon you're talking about us having is back bacon.

Personally I prefer back bacon but streaky is good too. Generally all bacon is good, streaky, back, smoked, unsmoked. It's all wonderful.

Bacon wrapped fish is good, though prosciutto wrapped fish is better.

Whoever said it has no place in a healthy diet must be a joyless soul indeed. Everything has it's place in a healthy diet as long as it's not consumed excessively.

[djm]

I had always seen my mom and everyone else collect old grease in a coffee can by the stove

A better use for your can of drippings is to let it get about 2/3 - 3/4 full, then melt it down and add bird seed. Fill it with the seed and stir it about as it cools so that the seed remains suspended and fairly evenly distributed. Let this solidify and then store it in the freezer. Come winter, remove the bottom of the can, stick a branch through the fat, then hang it outside for the birds. They love the suet/seed combo.

djm