Just to keep you busy while I'm at camp...some old Farm Sides this week. This one's from 2012
What element turns a
couple of slices of ordinary bread, a mundane tomato, and a leaf or two of
lettuce into an indescribable culinary delight? What tastes great crumbled on
salad, served up fried with eggs and toast, wrapped around a hot dog, or even baked
into a muffin? What is said to be the single gateway food that lures more folks
back to the omnivorous fold from vegetarianism than any other? It is made into
edible roses, quiche, and even ice cream.
You guessed it-bacon.
At
one time all pork was called bacon, but in these modern times we use the term
to describe meat from a pig, usually from the belly, back, or side, which is
cured using large amounts of salt, seasonings, nitrites and sometimes smoked as
well.
Here in America we prefer
the sides and belly of the pig to make what is called “streaky bacon”. Canadian
bacon on the other hand comes from the loin and is much leaner. Other nations
tend toward the leaner cuts as well. The word itself is thought to have
originated with various words for “back” in French and Germanic languages.
Salt curing was one
of the favorite means of preserving foods before the invention of
refrigeration. Some sources trace the practice of salting meats to keep them
from spoiling back at least to Ancient Egypt. Other meats and even vegetables
were preserved in a similar manner, in order that people could survive outside
of the growing season or travel away from traditional food sources. Indeed early
Christianity relied heavily on salt fish in order to meet the requirements of
Lent far from the sea.
We Americans like our
bacon and I mean, we really, really like it. It is tied with pulled pork for
popularity here in the US, where we enjoy 1.7 billion pounds annually. There are
popular blogs devoted entirely to bacon; The Bacon Show, and Bacon Unwrapped
are a couple of examples. The former features a new bacon recipe every single
day, and according to the header will continue to do so “forever”.
Bacon is versatile. The
Paleo Diet, which restricts folks to eating like cavemen, allows bacon.
Even our conversation
is laced heavily with bacon-related sayings from “bringing home the bacon” to “saving
one’s bacon”, which merely means to save one’s body from harm.
“Bringing home the
bacon” is a phrase with disputed origins. Some sources claim that is was first
used in Dunmow, England where men who could swear that they hadn’t argued with
their wives for a year were given a flitch of bacon. This is contested by folks
who insist that the phrase originated in reference to a boxing match in 1906,
wherein one of the contenders was said to have managed to return to his
domicile bearing cured pork.
It matters not; folks
who use the phrase today obviously consider bacon to be synonymous with success
in any endeavor.
And why not? Bacon
goes well with almost anything, including for the adventuresome of palate, milk
shakes.
Original bacon
recipes probably featured curing the meat in a heavy coating of salt and spices
with smoking to follow. Today commercial bacon production involves injection of
nitrites and brine, vacuum tumbling, combing, thermal processing, smoking,
chilling, pressing, slicing and packaging. Although the process seems more
elaborate, it really isn’t all that different, with the changes relating mostly
to quality control and the handling of large quantities of material in a
standardized manner.
There are also a
number of recipes for making homemade bacon, but the ones I looked at had me
shying away from concepts such as botulism, which was mentioned in more than
one article on the topic.
With all this
fondness for salty, smoky, flavorful fat meat, the press was in a swivet a
couple of weeks ago when the National Pig Association in the UK announced that
a worldwide bacon shortage was inevitable. The organization cited drought in
the US and Russia as making it more expensive to feed pigs and causing farmers
to sell off their herds.
However here in the US
a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council said that, although some
pigs are being liquidated because of the high cost of feed, it is happening at
a much slower rate than in other countries.
It seems however, that
universal price increases for bacon and probably other pork products can be
expected. With a five percent rally in corn futures prices just this week it is
almost inevitable. Food giant mandates for changes in hog housing aren’t going
to help the availability of pork products, including bacon, either.
Steve Meyer of
Paragon Economics, a consultant to the pork industry said on CNBC, “I’ve been
talking about [rising meat prices] since 2006 but nobody would listen until
someone said we’re not going to have enough bacon. If I’d known that I’d have
used different words. Don’t take away their bacon!”
Meyer went on to say
that even marginal increases in prices for foods, including bacon, cause harm where
it can least be withstood, “Anytime you drive up retail prices — beef, pork,
chicken, turkey, eggs, milk … it falls on people with low incomes and fixed
incomes,” he said. “The people who can’t afford it.”
It makes one wonder
whether Marie Antoinette, if she were alive today she might have said, “Let
them eat bacon.”
At any rate, whether
or not there is a shortage of bacon in the offing and whether or not we will
continue to be able to afford the salty treat, we can certainly rally around
celebration of International Bacon Day, which traditionally (at least since 2000)
has been celebrated on the last Saturday before Labor Day. Participants have
been known to commemorate the event by gathering to prepare bacon-based menu
items and then consuming them. Sounds like a plan to me.
In fact I propose
celebrating every Saturday or maybe even Sundays and week days if the
opportunity is afforded. After all-it’s bacon; what’s not to like?
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