Bacon of the Month Club

I can't believe I'm the first one to post this. If you're looking for a belated holiday gift for a beloved foodie....check this out. NPR had a big story about bacon, including a link to the bacon of the month club.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=6842543

Zingerman's also offers a more expensive bacon of the month club. Note that Zingerman's prices include shipping.

And you could add a package of bacon air fresheners from Archie McPhee...


http://www.mcphee.com/items/11076.html

they look nice wrapped in bacon wrapping paper.

I received Grateful Palate's BOTM for a Christmas present a few years back, and definitely enjoyed it. Quality stuff, all around, some of it very small-scale, I'm sure. My only complaint was that the selection seemed skewed a little heavily towards bacon of the sweet and maple-flavored variety... not a majority, but more than there should have been, if I recall. That said, they introduced me to Nodine's bacon, for which I'm eternally grateful.

Watch out for Grateful Palate's shipping charge. When I looked into it a while ago, the cost was $140 plus shipping, but the shipping came out to about $20/month extra. I ended up ordering their assortment of a dozen different bacons at once, so only one shipping charge. It was interesting to try all the different kinds.

-Will

Dmnkly wrote:I received Grateful Palate's BOTM for a Christmas present a few years back, and definitely enjoyed it. Quality stuff, all around, some of it very small-scale, I'm sure. My only complaint was that the selection seemed skewed a little heavily towards bacon of the sweet and maple-flavored variety... not a majority, but more than there should have been, if I recall. That said, they introduced me to Nodine's bacon, for which I'm eternally grateful.

Actually, we are receiving BOTM as a wedding present, and so far they are mostly towards the hickory smoke side.

I got the grateful palate for some friends this Christmas. The shipping charge is definitely a gotcha but they do ship overnight. I haven't heard anything about the order they've received thus far.

I note that elakin is mid-project in a bacon review on his entertaining blog:

http://cookingandeatinginchicago.blogsp ... ewood.html

Relevant section for my current comment:

Cudahy Signature Smoke Bacon with Sweet Applewood

Cooked appearance--Color, shape, texture. Nice color... Everything looks good. What can I say? See for yourself.

How does it taste--Sweetness, saltiness, smokiness, texture (melting, chewy, flabby, spongy), "porkiness". Zip. Zilch. Nada. I'm trying to think of funny stuff to say here, but I'm disappointed. It's hard to be funny when you're disappointed. This stuff is nothing that bacon is supposed to be. It's not even fair to call it bacon. It's facon. It makes me sad that I wasted the calories on it, and I'm annoyed that I ate it when I could've eaten actual bacon

I also bought a package of this (fortunately on sale for $5.99 vs the $7.50 list), admiring the snap-close packaging, since re-packaging bacon is a royal pain with potential to transmit trichinosis everywhere from the bag drawer to the utensil drawer to the refrigerator handle (I'm not really too worried; it's mostly the grease transfer that gets me).

While the bacon cooks evenly and looks beautiful, it has no melting, chewy, porky qualities as noted above. That said, it renders remarkably easily and well, leaving a uniform pool of deep and high-heat-sustainable fat that does wonders for chicken thighs and pork chops. I have a hard time getting that much liquid fat out of six strips of "better" bacon. The result is that the bacon itself, however, cooks quickly to the point of lifelessness. I've just crumbled it and tossed it on some boiled frozen pierogies with melted butter or used it on a spinach salad.

Santander wrote:I also bought a package of this (fortunately on sale for $5.99 vs the $7.50 list), admiring the snap-close packaging, since re-packaging bacon is a royal pain with potential to transmit trichinosis everywhere from the bag drawer to the utensil drawer to the refrigerator handle (I'm not really too worried; it's mostly the grease transfer that gets me).

While I also hate to handle bacon as much as the next person, the true risk of trichinosis is very minimal - on average there are 12 cases in the US per year - and most involve home-raised animals.


http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites ... inosis.htm

Also, if your bacon says "USDA Certified" on it, it's been treated for trichinella. They probably do this by freezing the belly for 20 days at 5F or 6 days at -20F, or something along those lines.

thanks for the mention, santander, and i'm glad you're enjoying the blog.

i looked into zingerman's BOMC as an xmas gift for my dad, but i discovered that most of the featured producers do their own mail order, and you can get the same product at a fraction of the price by ordering directly through them.

i chose a few randomly and ordered them up, packaged them myself, and just gifted my dad with a few choice bacons.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I just ordered a gift subscription for whiskeybent. Nobody tell him!

That's the best wedding present ever. Is there a registry for such things?

I just ordered a gift subscription for whiskeybent. Nobody tell him!

Oh, believe me, I'll eat it. I just won't tell anyone about it.

We'll beat this bacon thing, one step at a time!