Smoke
Different smoking techniques and woods used for smoking add distinct flavors to bacon. These are some of the most common treatments.
Double-smoked bacon is smoked as usual, then cooled and smoked again. This adds a deep smoky flavor and is particularly good for use in recipes where you want a rich smokiness. Home bacon makers and specialty smoke houses also do triple-smoked bacon.
Peameal bacon now is known as “sweet pickled pork loin” in Canada.
Commercially made bacons is commonly wet-cured by injecting brine into the pork belly.
Hickory gives a sharp, woody smoke flavor to bacon, while applewood and cherrywood give a mellow and sweet smokiness. Maple bacon might be cured with maple syrup and/or smoked over maple wood or processed with added maple wood flavor. Some commercially prepared brands use artificial maple flavor. Maple adds a sweet element to the salty, smoky bacon.
Other Varieties
Lower-sodium: Cured with less salt, and often less sugar, it typically has about 30 percent lower sodium content than regular bacon.
“Uncured” or “natural”: Often labeled as “natural,” uncured bacon is made without added nitrites but does have nitrite-containing naturally ingredients. This bacon must be labeled with “no nitrates or nitrites added except for those naturally occurring in ingredients such as celery juice powder, parsley, cherry powder, beet powder, spinach, sea salt, etc.” The flavor does tend to be milder than conventionally cured bacon.
Other Cuts
Canadian bacon (also called back bacon): boneless pork loin trimmed of all visible fat, shaped into a round, then cured and smoked. More like ham than side bacon, this very lean type is a popular item on pizza and eggs Benedict.
Peameal bacon: This is boneless pork loin pickled in a salt brine and characterized by the bright pink meat surrounded by a thin layer of fat and vibrant yellow crust of cornmeal. The coating used to be made from peas, thus the name. In Canada, this product now must be labeled “sweet pickled pork loin” and is not called bacon. Peameal bacon is sold as chunks of the loin or in thin slices.
English bacon: boneless pork loin with a generous trim of fat that is cured and smoked. This is a fairly lean, meaty cut sold as chunks of the loin or in slices. The slices in Britain are called “rashers.”
Pancetta: Italian bacon made from pork belly and cured similarly to side bacon but not smoked. The pork belly is rolled, jelly-roll style, into a cylinder before curing, then dried. The bacon lends a salty pork flavor without the typical smoke of other varieties. High-quality pancetta has equal parts meat and fat. It is generally sold in chunks of the cylinder or in thin slices.
A professional home economist, Jennifer MacKenzie (jennifer mackenzie.net) owns FoodWorx and creates cookbooks.
HOGS at the THROUGH
Choosing the source of your bacon is just as important as choosing the cut or flavoring.
BY LISA MUNNIKSMA
if it’s true that you are what you eat, it only makes sense that the richest-tasting bacon comes from hogs that eat the most diverse feeds. It also makes sense that pigs developed for bacon production — for the quality of their belly muscle and fat — will provide superior bacon. In today’s grocery-store-bacon society, however, some consumers have been led away from these principles.
Bacon Breeds
In general, commercial hog production favors pigs that have been selected for fast growth and lean meat. Lean meat isn’t what gives bacon its flavor; neither does fat. The best bacon flavor and texture comes from a combination of lean muscle and well-developed fat.
There are lard-pig breeds and there are “baconers,” explains Rob Levitt, co-owner of The Butcher & Larder whole-animal butcher shop in Chicago. Every bacon maker will have his or her own opinion about the best bacon breed. The Tamworth, for example, has a long body — and therefore a long belly, meaning a lot of bacon-producing potential — and is often called “the bacon pig.” At Levitt’s shop, they prefer a Berkshire-Duroc cross: “We like them because they have a nice ratio of meat to fat.”
Black Pig Meat Co. — owned by Duskie Estes and John Stewart, who also own Zazu Kitchen + Farm in Sebastopol, California — sources the majority of its bacon from Pure Country Pork, an Oregon farm that raises Chester White pigs in hoop-house systems. Depending on where on the belly the bacon is cut, Stewart gets an average of 30 percent fat in his bacon, which is ideal for him, because “I’m definitely looking to have the meat part of it expressed.”
Common breeds raised for slaughter include Yorkshire, Duroc and Tamworth.
Want to know more about butchering hogs? Turn to page.
Belly up! Most of the bacon strips seen in American stores today come from the belly of a hog, but bacon can come from the back and sides, too.
Stewart also raises Red Wattle and Mulefoot heritage-breed hogs and crosses, about 10 at a time, at his California home. He makes bacon on a small scale with these pigs. “I really like the fat on the Red Wattle,” he says. “It’s pretty close to beef fat.”
Production Systems
Pigs raised in confinement — as commercially produced pigs are in the United States — don’t have the opportunity to develop muscle fibers and flavors in the same way as pigs raised outdoors. These animals are surprisingly intelligent and social — two traits that lead to the development of negative behaviors, such as tail chewing and aggression, when pigs are kept in confinement.
“Getting them back outside as much as possible, even if it’s in a hoop barn, is better for the pig, better for the environment and better all around,” Stewart says.
When managed properly in a sustainablefarming system, pigs raised on pasture or in woodlots don’t have the concentrated manure buildup found in industrial-hog facilities; require fewer antibiotics; are not stressed from close confinement; are able to indulge in their natural “pigginess” — roaming, rooting around in the soil, wallowing in mud and foraging for foods found in nature — and can contribute to a healthy woodland ecosystem and productive multispecies grazing system, which are boons for farmers and land managers. In addition to adding to overall farm health, this exercise and the foraged foods develop the meat and enrich the flavor of the pork.
“Winter pigs taste different than summer pigs,” Levitt says. “It’s the same thing with beef and lamb.” One of the farmers who supplies The Butcher & Larder with pigs lets his animals graze in a fruit and chestnut orchard.
