I was okay with this trend for a while. For a while, when I'd read or hear someone say, "Everything's better with bacon!" I'd nod in conspiratorial agreement, thinking, "I hear you, man. I like bacon too." But then I realized something: Yeah. I like bacon. Everybody likes bacon. Why are we all pretending there's been some movement to suppress the love of bacon and we've finally thrown off our chains? Why is everyone gleefully cooking up bacon loaves and bacon-wrapped pizza and TurDuckBacon as if the Baconschutzstaffel had been sneaking around for the last decade disappearing bacon lovers in the night? Was I unaware of some trend where people would rat one another out to the KGBacon when they detected the smoky, savory odors and heard the crackling sizzle of cured hog frying in their neighbor's kitchen? I don't think so. I believe I would have noticed that.
I reached the breaking point with Suddenly Liberated Declarations of Bacon Love when this showed up in the New York Times. Now, I love the old gray lady as much as the next guy, but as my co-writer and fellow food philosopher Ky Henderson aptly put it, "I was reading that story and I thought, 'Hell yeah! That looks awes... you know what? I'm tired of this."
People! Bacon is one of the primeval foodstuffs. If bacon were a color it would be orange, not puce. If bacon were an element, it would be closer to carbon than it would be to Ytterbium. Every culture eventually figures out and grows to love some kind of bacon. The Canadians make bacon, the French make bacon, the French Canadians make bacon. I'll bet Innuits have at least three words for bacon, and I’ll bet their walrus bacon is outstanding. So to everyone currently pondering the Next Big Thing in Bacon, be it a bacon milkshake, or a linguini made of thin-sliced bacon noodles (actually, that sounds kind of good,) the bacon boat has sailed. Bacon's here to stay. It always has been.
Fadbuster: Hmong Smoked Pork
A few years ago, I was working at a popular Men’s Magazine, let’s call it, oh, “Maxim Magazine,” and had created a monthly column for myself called the “Of the Month Club of the Month.” This particularly unarduous assignment required me to join one “…of the month” club every month and review the items I was sent. My memberships at the height of my reign included the Candle of the Month Club, the Marshmallow of the Month Club, the Mineral of the Month Club, the Potato Chip of the Month Club, the Lingerie of the Month Club, the Crossword Puzzle of the Month Club and, coming to the point at last, the Bacon of the Month Club.
Because I had 200 words or fewer in each issue to review my memberships, I’d ingratiate myself with the club’s governing body and get them to send me six months’ worth of product at one time. Now, receiving a cooler chest containing a six-month supply of bacon will probably inspire a food boner in most of my readers—I happen to believe that on a genetic level, even the stodgiest and animal-lovingest vegetarians must respond to the smell of bacon—however, there exists a great divide between the idea of eating six months’ worth of bacon at a sitting and the act of eating six months’ worth of bacon at a sitting.
I consider the worst food choice I ever made to be the time when my brother Andrew and I were walking home, parched, from a basketball game, and I decided, in lieu of my usual large bottle of Gatorade, to purchase an identically-sized bottle of prune juice. I hadn’t had time to eat before the game, and I was feeling a little dizzy, and prune juice, being the “meatiest” drink on offer, struck me as a way to address both situations.
Andrew, for reasons best known to Andrew, elected to follow my lead and we each consumed 32 fluid ounces of prune juice on our walk home. I did not report for work the following morning. In fact, I did nothing for two consecutive days other than use the bathroom, and wait outside the bathroom for Andrew to finish using it.
I don’t know if there’s something about keeping company with Andrew that inspires me to make bad food decisions, but I can report that the time we consumed six months’ worth of bacon in one night was not a highlight of my eating career. The thing about eating bacon with a set purpose is that, while your body and your brain are eventually sated, and even sickened, by the sight and smell of bacon, your uncontrollables—your nose, your salivary glands, your tongue—are unquenchable. So, like goldfish, who, if given enough food, will eat themselves to death, we chowed through about half a hog on our way to the invention of “the meat hangover.”
Since that day my passion for bacon has abetted. Now, this is not to say that I don’t enjoy bacon, but I prefer to eat around the periphery of the bacon universe. When offered a piece of pedestrian, strip-style bacon, I’ll eat it, sure, but I’m not going to get excited about it. I feel like I’ve consumed bacon “professionally;” I’ve been to “the show” bacon-wise, and it takes something special to get me fired up.
Hmong smoked pork is something special. As evidence of how special it is allow me to state that I bought it despite the fact that the neighboring refrigeration unit contained packages of frozen beetles and crickets. (Bugs are the one thing I would never eat.) Not as smoky, or as salty as most bacon-type pork products, Hmong smoked pork is sold in sizable cross sections of pork belly consisting of a layer of meat, a layer of fat, and a thin strip of skin.
The first time I cooked Hmong smoked pork, I cut thick slices and fried them in a skillet. This is a fine way to go, and would make a great addition to a fried rice, or a noodle soup, or maybe (and I’m thinking out loud here) some kind of creamy, sesame-infused, Asian version of spaghetti carbonara. (If anyone tries that, let me know how it goes.) However, I have since resolved that the best way to prepare the pork is to roast it at 300 for about 20 minutes, then jack the heat as high as possible for about 10 minutes to crisp the skin.
Cooked this way, the flavors of the cure will condense as the bacon renders leaving you with a less fatty, crispier, and far more flavorful item than you initially put into your oven. I like to serve the bacon sliced thinly on the bias—as you would a flatiron steak or a brisket—over steamed rice with veggies. The pure flavors of the rice and vegetables provide a clean counterpoint to the pungency and sweetness of the pork and you’ll enjoy the yin and yang sensation of eating healthily and unhealthily at the same time without feeling the need to weave the bacon into a bowl shape and fill it with bacon.
