· Bacon as the Next Big Thing

· Different Qualities of Bacon

· Making Better Bacon

· Great Bacons Just Taste Better

· Guanciale Girl Goes Wild with Magical Roman Bacon

· Pancetta — Eat it Raw!

It's hardly news any more to make the "Everything's better with bacon" statement. But the thing is that while so many catchy slogans like that turn out to be a bunch of marketing malarkey, this one sort of seems to be holding true — it works with salads, sandwiches, shrimp, shad and scallops. Bacon Farm Bread at Zingerman's Bakehouse has built a very passionate cult following. Cornmeal and cauliflower are both enhanced by a bit of bacon. You could build a whole book on the subject of BLTs. Pork loin is... already pork but it's even better when you lay some good bacon on it while it's roasting, which I suppose is the porcine equivalent of the very delicious act of dressing olives with additional olive oil. Even some desserts (seriously) taste better with bacon — I think apple crisp with a bit of bacon is pretty darned good.

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Different Qualities of Bacon
Like most traditional foods, there really isn't all that much to mess with when it comes to bacon. Either you do it right, or you make the sort of stuff that accounts for 99 percent of what's sold in supermarkets. That said, I guess it shouldn't come as a shock to me that there are such huge quality differences between the bacons consumers can buy. While the word "bacon" appears boldly on all of them, there's pretty drastic differences from one to the next.

Mass-market bacon is also almost always loaded up with salt, primarily, to mask the lack of flavor in otherwise almost tasteless meat. A Spanish chef once told me that when you eat low-grade anchovies "afterwards you can drink a fountain." Same story when it comes to mass-market bacon — eat a BLT in a low-end diner and hours later I'm so thirsty I can barely cope.

Lastly, bad bacon adds the lugubrious flavor of liquid smoke to the meat, trying to make up for lost time and lost woods because the pork isn't ever put in a real smokehouse. Happily not all bacon is made for the mass market. There are great tasting, full-flavored traditional offerings out there. What makes them so much better?

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Making Better Bacon
The Raw Material: Breed, Feed and Freedom to Roam
Given that the raw material that goes into any product is going to have a huge influence on the quality of what's made it from it, the quality of the hogs being raised in this country has seen a pretty big shift in the last sixty years or so. As with most of our foods, the more we've introduced "cost effective" (I use quotes because from what I know and have experienced I don't really think it is cost effective) science to the craft of sustainable farming, the more we've disconnected the eating of the actual food from those who produce it. And the results haven't been positive for the flavor of the food or much of anything else, as far as I can tell and taste. In truth, the pork situation has followed pretty much the same pattern as commercial corn did, a path that Michael Pollan outlined so well in his book, Omnivore's Dilemma.

In essence, it goes like this. When farm families raised a hog or two for their own consumption, there was a high interest in attention to detail at every level of the work. They got along pretty well with their pigs, the animals' stress levels were lower, and the meat produced was likely better tasting as a result (less-stressed, better-fed animals yield better tasting meat). Since the people who raised the pigs also ate the bacon, ham or fresh pork that came from them, the farmer had every incentive to improve the eating quality of the meat.

Three things happened to change that equation:
a) Pork "production" became a way to make extra money and not just feed the family.

b) As a result, slaughter and sale took place further and further from where the animals were actually raised.

c) That meant that the people who raised hogs hardly ever actually tasted the pork they had produced.

From this came a gradual, and I think, inevitable, loss in a farmer's interest in raising the best pork possible. Since his family wasn't going to eat it anyways, weight gain and consistency, not flavor, became the key to "quality." Today the separation between pig and production has become even bigger than it's ever been. This is one of the keys to what "local" means to us here — it's not just about distance. This same problem can occur all within a matter of miles. The key for us is in the relationships and the connections, or lack thereof. When the person raising the food doesn't really eat it and when they don't talk to the people who do (let alone even know who they are!), most everything from quality of life to environment to flavor seems to suffer.

There's really no way around it — better bacon starts with better hogs. When George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm that, "some animals are more equal than others," he wasn't referring to their culinary contributions, but he could have been. There's enormous variation in the flavor of the finished pork product depending on the breed of animal, where and how it's raised, and what it eats. In the same way that the flavor of free-range chickens sets commercial birds to shame, so too the standard commercial pork you and I are used to pales in comparison to some of the superb stuff being raised by specialists 'round the world.

The best pork — for bacon or any other use — is going to come from hogs that have been allowed to run free in the pastures rather than being raised in the enclosed spaces of industrial confinement buildings. Quite simply the animals are living in a more natural habitat; they move around, they exercise, and they're around humans regularly. The hogs move freely and hence get a normal amount of exercise, sun and open fresh air. And they eat better when they're grazing (yes, hogs graze!) in the pastures.

It's also about getting pork that's well-balanced for bacon-making. Sam Edwards, who grew up on the ham and bacon business in Surry, Virginia, where his grandfather started curing in the early years of the 20th century, said that it's critical to start with "Fresh belly that has right lean to fat ratio. We used to think leaner was better but the new, modern generation of hogs has created the problem of bellies getting too lean." Note that while the old expression about "eating high on the hog" meant that the cuts from the upper part of the pig were most prestigious and most pricey, these days the demand for bacon has made pork bellies ever more costly.

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Great Bacons Just Taste Better
Nueske's Wisconsin Applewood-Smoked Bacon
If you want a big time testimonial to get you to try Nueske's, take it from the great, late, reporter of politics and food, R. W. Apple, who wrote in the NY Times that Nueske's was "the beluga of bacon, the Rolls-Royce of rashers." If you're one of the few people in town here who hasn't actually eaten it, Nueske's bacon is meaty, subtly sweet (I think as much from the influence of the applewood as from the sugar in the cure), and so good that we've been cooking it every morning at the Deli for the last twenty-five years now.

Tanya Nueske, granddaughter of the founder, is about as passionate about her product as you're going to get. If the bacon wasn't so darned good it's not unlikely her bubbliness could be taken to be a bit over the top. But the bacon is so good that it comes across as the sincere love of her product that it is. "What we do is a very old tradition. My grandfather started up selling the bacon in 1933. He started out smoking over applewood. And he had a way of doing it and style that came from his grandparents." He has a good sense of style in a personal way too — If you're out at the Roadhouse you can see him, dressed snappily in a newly-pressed Nueske's delivery uniform, looking out at you from his photographic perch above the fireplace.

And even though she's been around it her entire life, she still loves to eat it, and eat it often. "I eat bacon so much. I eat it plain all the time. We used to do some toasted buns with olives, sautéed onions, bacon and cheese and sour cream. You put 'em under the broiler — it's so good." The passion for the products comes through. We also take our hot dogs and we split them down the middle and add cheddar cheese and a pickle and wrap the whole thing in bacon and run it under the broiler. Basically, we use bacon with everything!"

Not surprisingly, they start with higher quality hogs — primarily a cross of Yorkshire, Hampshire, Landrace and Berkshire. "One of the biggest differences we find is in how they're fed," Tanya told me. "We do a feed that's more barley and corn mixture. We've been working with our suppliers for well over 25 years. And we still hand trim everything." The Nueske's cure the fresh slabs of bacon for at least 24 hours, hang them to dry for a day or so, and then smoke them for another. "It gets an awesome flavor because its been smoked so long," she said.

"We design our smokehouses ourselves and have 'em built for us," she explained. "And," she added, "we still use actual applewood logs. People should know that 'applewood smoke' can mean almost anything these days — apple juice, apple-smoke flavoring... But we only use real logs. The smoking is all hand controlled by the smokemaster. It's a very artisan thing." She laughed and then added, "The smokehouses are like children. The smokemaster will tell you that each smokehouse is different."

Without question, Nueske's has proven one of the most popular foods we've got for sale anywhere in our organization. We sell lots of it for folks to take home to cook in their own kitchens and we also use it extensively here. If you come visit, you can try it on any number of sandwiches, in the greens at the Roadhouse or the Peppered Bacon Farm Bread at the Bakehouse. Its flavor is on the mellower side, with soft sweetness from the applewood that I think amplifies the natural sweetness in the high quality pork the family goes to such lengths to source.

Arkansas Peppered Bacon
One of my total long time favorites, this special pepper-coated bacon is cured and smoked at the foothills of Mt. Petit Jean in Arkansas. The family has been at it for over sixty years and they're still using the recipe they started with back before WWII. It's cured in a wet brine of salt, sugar and spices for four or five days (the exact nature of which is a family secret), smoked over hickory for just under 24 hours, then rolled in brown sugar and finally hand-rubbed with cracked black peppercorn.

There are so many things you can do with this bacon, I can't even begin to list them all here. I love it because it's less sweet, more spicy and very meaty, so much so that I sometimes don't get as much bacon fat out of it as I want if I'm cooking the bacon as an ingredient rather than just to eat. It's great on everything from burgers to egg dishes to just about anything else.

One really great way to use it is in the braised bacon recipe from Molly Stevens award-winning book Braising. She learned the dish from Judy Rogers at Zuni Café. You can check out the details in Molly's book. The recipe is far more involved than I'm going to be able to tell you here, but basically it calls for a nice slow-braise of a large chunk of bacon in broth and vegetables before using it to make pasta carbonara. The braising enriches the flavor of the bacon in a big way and I really like the way the pepper on the Arkansas bacon livens up the sauce. If you're up for a nice pasta dish check it out.

Arkansas Bacon with Balinese Long Pepper
A specially spiced version of the Arkansas peppered bacon that we got the folks in the Ozarks to just for us. If you aren't already familiar with it, long pepper has been fairly hard to find in the Western world for the last few hundred years. In the Middle Ages it pretty much passed out of use in Europe, likely because it's slightly moister than black pepper and hence didn't have the latter's keeping qualities. But back in its day long pepper was actually more popular with Roman cooks than black pepper, and it sold for about three times the price (and black pepper itself often was priced higher than gold). Telicherrry black pepper's flavor is a bit more direct with nice winy undertones, the Balinese long pepper is more of a roller coaster ride, sort of an accordion full of exotic flavors that play out in twists and turns as you eat it. You can use this great bacon in pretty much any way you like. Sliced and fried for breakfast with grits and eggs. On BLTs. In sauces and soups. Fried, chopped and used to top salads (very good with a poached egg on a salad of frisée).

Hungarian Double-Smoked Bacon
A staple in Hungarian cooking, the authentic article isn't allowed to be imported into the US, but it's been made eaten in the US for years by the long standing Hungarian immigrant community. The Hotel Butcher, Garde Manger and Carver, published in 1916, lists it amongst the country's better bacons, but adds parenthetically that it's "Not much relished except by foreigners." As the name implies, the Hungarian bacon is intensely smoky. It's great as a seasoning in stews and soups. Personally, I like it a lot in bean salads or fried then mixed into scrambled eggs. In Hungary, I've been told people used to hold pieces of it over the fire and catch the drippings on a piece of rye bread along with some onion and pieces of the now-crisply cooked bacon. It's sort of like an inverted version of bacon fat fondue. Alternatively, you can toss the drippings onto vegetables as a salad dressing. In either case , sprinkle on some good Hungarian paprika as well. It's great for making traditional Hungarian potato salad — fry small pieces of the bacon 'til crisp, then remove them from the pan. In the bacon fat, cook some chopped sweet onion 'til soft. Add a little flour and stir 'til smooth, then add a bit of vinegar and sugar and cook for a few minutes 'til you have a smooth dressing. Pour the dressing over the just cooked potatoes and sprinkle on the bacon pieces, adding a good sprinkling of Hungarian paprika over top and eat it while it's hot.

Virginia Bacon from Sam Edwards
A pillar of the traditional pork world, Sam Edwards is still curing and smoking bacon (and great country ham and sausage as well) just as his grandfather and father did it in the town of Surry in Eastern Virginia. This is country-cured bacon the way it's been done for many centuries. "We start with fresh pork belly that has the right lean-to-fat ratio," he told me. "In 99% of bacon today, water is the first ingredient. But we dry cure. We literally rub it with salt and sugar. We leave the bacon in the salt and sugar for seven to ten days. Then we rub it off and smoke it for about 18 to 24 hours over green hickory to get the color and flavor we want."

That flavor is very good — subtly sweet and very smoky at the same time, terrific for eating as-is on sandwiches or for flavoring bean dishes, soups or stews of all sorts. It's bacon for bigger-flavored dishes — I like this one particularly crisply fried although Sam says he likes it softer. Because it's got such a big flavor it's great just served up simply for breakfast with (Anson Mills!) grits and eggs!

Broadbent's Dry Cured Kentucky Bacon
Cured by Ronnie and Beth Drennan, formerly in the town of Cadiz (pronounced "Katy's") and now twenty-five miles down the road in Kuttawa, in the southwestern corner of the Bluegrass state. Two of the nicest folks I've met in the food business, they're Kentuckians through and through and they make a darned good bacon. The Broadbent company and the recipe for their cure date back to 1909 when Anna and Smith Broadbent started selling ham, bacon and sausage from their family farm. Ronny and Beth bought the company from Smith Broadbent III back in 1999 and worked with them for a few years to transfer the family's knowledge and recipes. This wasn't one of those city-kids-fall-in love-with-the-country-and-move-to-Cadiz-to-cure bacon stories — both the Drennans are from the area. Ronnie remembers his dad curing country ham and bacon on the farm back when he was growing up.

For the bacon, they cure fresh bellies with salt, sugar and nitrite. "We hand rub each belly and then we stack 'em on the shelves about 7 or 8 slabs high. We leave 'em for one week, then we warsh all the salt off and hang 'em up on the bacon hooks and we let 'em sit overnight and a day to set, then let 'em sit. Then we smoke 'em for 3 or 4 days. A lot of it depends on the weather. Sometimes it'll smoke quicker and sometimes a bit longer." It's been a big hit and attention-getter amongst many of the food writers and chefs I've given it to try. "Our bacon tends to remind people so much of what their grandparents did. They've moved off the farm and they get to taste this now. So many people say they haven't had bacon like this in years." Broadbent's bacon brings big, bold flavors that are great for putting in stews or into dishes where you want some big flavor. Or, of course, if you like country bacon (as I do) it's very good with eggs and grits or in long-cooked Kentucky-style green beans.

PS. Check out the Broadbent's smoked-in-the-cloth bag, Trigg County-style sausage. It's fantastic! You can try it in the sausage and gravy at either the Deli or the Roadhouse, or buy a bag of it to take home there or ship it to a sausage-loving friend at www.zingermans.com.

Benton's Bacon from Eastern Tennessee
I've been staying away from my usual habit of list making so far here, but, since I'm down to the end of the piece I think I'll succumb and give you:

Three Really Big Reasons to Try Benton's Bacon

1. This is Southern Foodways Alliance leader, food writer and exceptionally tasteful individual of great character, John T. Edge's favorite bacon.

2. Allan Benton is, seriously, one of the nicest people I've ever met, in the food world and out.

3. It's just really good — a very special bacon to use when you want to make bacon a focal point in your food.

John T. isn't the only one who believes — Benton's bacon has been written up in the NY Times, Gourmet, Saveur and probably just about every other major food magazine. It's a favorite of deservedly acclaimed Momofuko chef David Chang in New York City. I could go on but I won't — suffice it to say it's a long and prestigious list.

I had the chance to go to Benton's in person last winter, finally making my way down there after years of wanting to. Straight off I asked Allan about the obvious: "What makes the stuff so great?"

He smiled and answered softly, "The secret is that there is no secret." In his graceful Appalachian accent, he added "This is just the way bacon was made years ago." He would know. "I was born so far back in the hills of Virginia that you had to look straight up to see the sun. We were desperately poor even by Appalachian standards," he went on smiling, "but I didn't know that. Neither side of my family owned an automobile. Neither owned a tractor. They took a gooseneck hoe and they farmed the land like that." He thought for a minute, and added, "They actually raised almost everything they ate."

The production methods — true to what Allan learned growing up — are not dissimilar to what Sam Edwards and the Drennans are doing, but with his family's western Virginia mountain twist. Freshly arriving bacon slabs get a really good rub down with brown sugar and salt. After a couple weeks of curing the slabs are rinsed and then left to cure for another two weeks or so. From there the bacon goes out back, literally, to the smoke box. It's all of maybe 20 feet square — big enough to roll a couple racks into but that's about it. Allan smokes almost all of them over hickory. The bacon gets about 48 hours in the smoker, "but it's a bit different every time," he explained. The whole process takes about five weeks from the time they start 'til they're done. Making bacon like this is still a craft, not a science. "Heat has a lot to do with it. You need heat to open up the meat to let it take smoke. We try to keep it at about 85 to 110 (°F) in there," he explained.

Benton's is not a bacon that will sit casually on the edge of your eating. It's an intense confluence of smoke, salt and sweet all at once; none dominates, all are pronounced. It's like umami all in one bacon bit. Maybe more than any other bacon on this list, I kind of think Benton's brings its own flavor to whatever you use it in. It's not a small flavor. If you're into it, this one will become your BLT bacon of choice. Add cornmeal coated fried catfish filet or fried green tomatoes and you've got something really special. Fry it, chop it, toss fresh vegetables into the bacon fat and roast at high heat 'til they're browned and tender, then toss with the chopped bacon tossed back over top.

My favorite thing to do with it, though, is probably to serve it — and its fat, in all its smoky glory — over a bowl of hot mush made from Anson Mills cornmeal. While it probably sounds stupidly simple in the context of fancy five star restaurants, that simple dish — made with two incredibly good ingredients — is amazingly delicious. I think it's the Southern equivalent of eating just-cooked Martelli spaghetti tossed in a great Tuscan olive oil topped with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and black pepper.

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Guanciale Girl Goes Wild with Magical Roman Bacon
Guanicale is an interesting alternative to bacon in cooking and folks in the know will tell you it's the most authentic meat to be using when you're making pasta all' amatriciana. If you're not familiar with guanciale — and most Americans aren't — it's unsmoked cured pig jowl. (The name, "guanciale," is pronounced something along the lines of a Boston native saying, "Go on, Charley,"sort of like, "G'won chaalie!") "Cured jowl" probably sounds scary to some who've not had it, but if you like bacon (which most everyone seems to these days), you'll want to get to know guanciale. Why? Because it's porky, rich, velvety good and just as easy to use as bacon or any other cured meat. If you need any more convincing, it's a centuries old tradition in Italy and Mario Batali loves it. Plus, it's been called "the magical Roman bacon" and that's a pretty tough-to-turn-down tag line in this crowd. Personally, I was won over to it by Elizabeth Minchilli, friend and food writer, originally from St. Louis but who's been living tastefully (in all senses of the word) in Rome with her Italian architect husband, children and dog for a long time now. I was actually asking her about pancetta not long ago, but she wrote me back in a kitchen confidential sort of way. "I have become a guanciale girl," she confessed. "I am so much happier cooking with guanciale instead of pancetta." Which got my attention. Forget the Prozac — just switching porks can increase life satisfaction.

Who wouldn't want to try it after that? I take Elizabeth's comments seriously — she cooks regularly and definitely knows her food. Her recipe — Minchilli Meatballs — is in Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating and has been one of our most popular catering items for many moons. "What makes you so high on it?" I inquired. "The fat is a different texture, and so takes longer to get to that crunchy stage," she replied. "And when it does," she went on, "it still remains chewy and has a richer, meatier flavour."

The name "guanciale" means "pillow" in Italian, a reference to the chewy, meatiness that Elizabeth mentioned above and also the shape of the whole piece of off-white colored cured pork. We've got an excellent version from Herb Eckhouse at La Quercia in Iowa, who's doing wonderful work with all sorts of cured pork product, and started curing his jowls a few years back. Like Elizabeth, he's a big fan. "We started making guanciale because we like eating it. Next thing we know, we can't keep it in stock." Herb and his crew rub the pork with salt and spices (most prominently rosemary and black pepper) and then dry cure to finish it off. They use no nitrites, nitrates, vegetable juice or extracts. "The challenge," Herb told me, "is getting the moisture out without making it overly dry." He's settled on about a six-week curing time, which he feels finds the right balance to intensify the flavor but not end up with something resembling shoe leather.

Thinking back to where this sidebar started, with Elizabeth in Rome... "What," you might wonder, "does the original Guanciale Girl have to do with it?" "I use it for pasta — carbonara, amatriciana — but I also put it in with beans," she went on. "I sometimes use it in spinach salad, as if it were bacon. Last summer I was using it on all sorts of pizza. My favorite was goat cheese, sage and fried guanciale!"

Pasta all'amatriciana is definitely the most prestigious place to put it. As with so many classic recipes, there is of course no straight story as to the origin of the dish, nor on exactly the "right" ingredients to use. The most commonly known version is basically a tomato sauce, with or without, a good bit of sliced onion (in Rome they use it, in the town of Amatrice, after which the dish is named, they don't). Generally the sauce is served on thick spaghetti or bucatini (depending on who you talk to). And it's generally finished with a good bit of grated aged pecorino.

By the time we get to August, tomato season should start to get going in full swing. Which means that amatriciana will be a great way to eat too. But for other times of the year, or if you're not all that into tomatoes, there is also a pre-Columbian Exchange version of the dish, known as pasta alla Gricia, made without them. It's often served over shorter, squatter pasta shapes such as rigatoni. Being the traditionalist. I tried making it as soon as I heard about it and I'm happy to report that it's very, very good. It's very rich from the guanciale, which is generally cooked so it's still softish in texture as Elizabeth described.

Last spring I got going a slight variation on the Gricia — guanciale cooked in the pan with the new season's asparagus from the farmers' market. In truth, I think you can do the same thing with pretty much any of the vegetables on the market this summer. To make this one, I let the asparagus spears get browned off nicely in the pork fat. I typically use Martelli spaghetti which has been one of my favorite pastas for forever and a half now, but you can use the shape of your choice. To make it, simply drain the pasta a bit before it's al dente and then toss it into the pan in which you've cooked the guanciale and asparagus with the heat still up pretty high. The guanciale fat coats the pasta beautifully. Put the whole thing into warm bowls then top with a ton of grated Pecorino Romano and good lot of ground black pepper and red pepper flakes. I like the pasta very al dente for this, but do it up as you like, since, of course, you're the one eating it. Visually you kind of lose the guanciale in the mix of green asparagus and off white pasta and cheese. But you'll experience it when you eat. As Elizabeth said, the pieces cook up in a way that keeps the fat intact on the inside so that when you bite into their golden crust they sort of explode in your mouth like little porky Pop Rocks. Just to get across how good this, I made it three times in the last two weeks.

So there you go. I'll start working on the Guanciale Girl logo wear but in the mean time eat a little and let the guanciale good times roll.

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Pancetta — Eat it Raw!
While we can't import pancetta from Italy, we're happily getting a very good version from Herb Eckhouse in Iowa here at the Deli. It starts with Berkshire pork, which Herb has cured with black and white peppercorns, juniper, bay leaves and sea salt. Unlike most American bacons, pancetta is not smoked. It is used as a flavoring agent in all types of savory dishes. It's a classic ingredient for pasta carbonara of course, but you can also dice it to add to vegetable, bean soups, salads or pretty much anything else. As they come in try wrapping fresh figs in slices of pancetta, stick 'em with a sprig of fresh rosemary and then run the skewers under the broiler to cook the pork very lightly.

But what few Americans are aware of is that in Italy the #1 way to eat pancetta is sliced and consumed as is — RAW! You got it — uncooked in every way. In Italy, raw pancetta is a staple on antipasto plates. I mean, really, this is the way the vast majority of pancetta is eaten. Just sliced as is, then laid out on a nice platter with sliced prosciutto, some sliced salami, etc. It's really delicious. Serve it up with some warm country bread, slices of other cured meats, maybe some good olives, some fresh sticks of fennel. However you eat it, enjoy!