For over two weeks I’ve purposely been restricting my emotions as I fought for calm and searched for words to describe my complete delight at the gift that the UPS man hid under our patio chairs.
Perhaps Shayna (my now-in-training dog) could have matched my joy except for the UPS man’s forethought.
What brought this non-drug induced high was the reception of my Bacon of the Month shipment. Readers might recall that the last shipment was intercepted by ravenous and curious Shayna.
I had been pre-informed that because of the hot summer months I’d be getting three months at one time. Well, they shipped four, and between the looks through the shrink wrap and the accompanying descriptions I wondered about preserving them for a lifetime (what’s left of it) or marrying all four.
I’m sure the latter could be approved in Boston.
June’s bacon is Rabideaux’s Dry Cured Smok-ed bacon from New Orleans. The literature reads: ‘It is as vaudeville a gallery of flavor as the state’s terrain and culture where it is born; it is a fan-boat ride through the swamps, diner en le Nouvelle Orleans, a night of debauchery in Baton Rouge, etc.?
They make 6,000 pounds of this stuff a week. I am, of course, calling the bacon, not the PR, stuff.
July’s choice is Burgers? Smokehouse Peppered Country Bacon. It’s smoked in the Ozarks at California, Missouri.
Pepper bacon is bacon rubbed in brown sugar, salt and a fine layer of pepper, before being smoked for 12 hours with hickory sawdust. And its fat is a silk that has men toiling in the smoke houses like their forefathers. They use grandmother Hulda’s German recipe.
Smithfield, North Carolina is the home of August’s bacon – Johnston’s Dry Sugar Cured Bacon.
Their bacon spends seven days in the salt cure before seven in the aging room, generating a bracing saltiness that leaves it crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
‘Johnston’s bacon stays savory, maintaining an innocent, tantalizing flavor to balance the saltiness. Then it is smoked in hickory sawdust to add to the complexity.?
What’s with this hickory sawdust? Could it be that we should be raising hickory trees, or at least adding the dust to our charcoal grilling?
For the beginning of Fall the Bacon of the Month Club chose Meacham’s Old Fashion Maple Cured Bacon. They produce 800 pounds of bacon out of Sturgis, Kentucky every year. ‘Meacham blood runs with the same patience as sap.?
Their bacon is dry-cured for 10 days in a mixture of salt, sugar and natural maple before smoking the bacon for another week over hickory (again with the hickory) and maple.
This is interesting. Meacham bacon founder, William Meacham, 91, was the first farmer in Kentucky to use rubber tires on a tractor.
Bet you didn’t know that!
The day I discovered these four pounds of bacon on the porch I had already bought two pounds of Oscar Mayer bacon. They, too, have a PR department:
‘America’s favorite has been making great tasting bacon for over 75 years. Our naturally hardwood smoked process brings out the delicious flavor and aroma that everyone loves.?
Decisions, decisions. What will I eat first?
Meet me in Boston.