All things are better with bacon....

[moose eater]

This year has often seen a glutted pork market in the mid-west and elsewhere, leading to seriously low prices and farmers even sometimes 'offing' entire groups of their hog crops in an effort to bring prices back up.

That said, bacon and other smoked meats seemingly run a market rate of their own, despite glutted pork markets. And in Alaska, they have a captive market anyway... AND THEY KNOW IT!!

SO, all of this is leading up to what?

I have an opportunity to obtain a couple cases of bacon, at just over half-price-per-lb. of our local retail pricing, but I'm unfamiliar with the brand; 'Daily'

These are (24) 1-lb. packages per case, and the wholesaler said nothing about apple wood smoked or thick sliced, which is the bulk of the info I found on-line when I went searching. So... it may or may not be one of those two, or both. Who knows? The wholesaler couldn't tell me much, other than pricing and package sizes.

With room in the freezers, less likelihood of a moose this year (unlike most), and not having gone after a caribou yet, we can fit 48 lbs or so of bacon in there without much concern.

But I HATE excessively salty bacon, like we used to see in cans from Denmark, that we'd have to rinse in water if you wanted anything that didn't taste god-awful salty!!

So, is anyone familiar with the brand 'Daily' bacon?

I know... Kind of anti-climactic after all of that setting up of the question, right??

 

[moose eater]

If I receive informed and positive replies re. this brand of bacon, I'm hoping to score the last couple cases the wholesaler has, this next Tuesday.

Currently the kitchen counter is over-run with 4 or 5 varieties of tomatoes from the veggie garden, and nothing burns through excess tomatoes like a steady diet of bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches; preferably on whole-grain bread, with good mayo and a touch of horse radish mixed in.

Or.... My wife is threatening to puree the 'maters and make sauce.. Which seems a waste for some delightfully ripe 'maters.

Anyone?

 

[Stoner4Life]

 

[GainGreene]

Have you every eaten smoked bacon? Simply amazing

 

[moose eater]

I see things are excellent at your house, Stonerforlife!!

We're building a shrine around that image, and may file for tax-exempt status as 'The Church of the Cured & Smoked Pork Belly.'

 

[moose eater]

Yes. At our home, it's its own food group. I know fairly serious vegetarians who make an exception for bacon (seriously).

When I questioned them, the wife in the couple told me it's a vegetable, based on the fact that pigs eat mostly grain, and the concept of "we are what we eat."

I said, "OK..."

Me, I just like bacon.

But we still have all these 'maters, winter on the way shortly, and my unwillingness to pay retail prices for the stuff...

Maybe I'll go in to town Tuesday, and ask the wholesaler if we can peek inside the boxes to at least get a sense of the % of lean, versus fat...

Have you every eaten smoked bacon? Simply amazing

 

[CosmicCharlie]

No idea about the brand.

However, bacon that has had a dusting of flour coating and then been deep fried is probably the best bacon I've had.

 

[moose eater]

Thanks. Never tried it. Sounds plausible though.

My first thought was, "I wonder how deep-fried tempura bacon might taste?"

Got a whole winter ahead to find out...

My wife showed interest, and added, with emphasis, "Deep-fried in -fresh- peanut oil!"

My Gawd!! We may have begun some sort of cult here.

No idea about the brand.

However, bacon that has had a dusting of flour coating and then been deep fried is probably the best bacon I've had.

 

[kaochiu]

There are things in life one shouldn't play with, and one of them is bacon. Specially if you're going to buy a lot. You might be saving a bunch of dirty notes, but you risk eating low quality bacon for the whole winter. How do you know it isn't tofu bacon? Ask the butchers to let you try it first. Trust no one when it comes to bacon.

 

[moose eater]

I see your point. I may not have been talking this seriously enough.

I think I'll be fortunate, however, just to have the seller open up a box and let me see the contents through the tiny window on the back of the individual packages. That is, if I keep this whole process on the up-and-up.

A taste-test would probably require some sort of burglary in order to retrieve a sample sufficient to make a better informed decision.

This whole thing just gets uglier and uglier... the pigs, the uncertainty, the possibility of being saddled with low-quality bacon, and the allure of serious property crimes as the only way to really appease the unknowns.

This is bad. I can see that now...

There's always the reindeer herd at the University's experimental farm. Hmmmm.

There are things in life one shouldn't play with, and one of them is bacon. Specially if you're going to buy a lot. You might be saving a bunch of dirty notes, but you risk eating low quality bacon for the whole winter. How do you know it isn't tofu bacon? Ask the butchers to let you try it first. Trust no one when it comes to bacon.

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

I read recently that some guy got busted and fined for eating bacon in Sweden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulMjXgQKO5E

 

[moose eater]

I can't play video with the dismally slow 56k dial-up and what ought to be a banned span of over 500 ft. of aerial two-strand wire to further slow the connection. As it is, I do chores while images load sometimes. But in this day when some locations are passing ordinances/codes/laws barring folks from collecting rainwater, then, in my opinion, anything is possible. ;^>)

I read recently that some guy got busted and fined for eating bacon in Sweden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulMjXgQKO5E

 

[CosmicCharlie]

Tempura fried bacon may be excellent.

What I was talking about isn't really breading. No eggs are used. You just lightly dust the bacon in flour then deep fry it. You can't really tell it has the flour coating when you eat it. It just comes out and tastes like perfect bacon.

I'm about to eat some now!

 

[growingcrazy]

A quick google search turns up a Daily's meats. Based in MO it appears.

We raise and sell pigs on our farm... 8 slices to a lb package... that is bacon. lol

 

[prune]

Jeez, if you're taking wild game, then you should be making your own bacon. Try the "Buckboard" bacon and you'll find a new dawn...

 

[kaochiu]

Real raw bacon looks like this

 

[BOMBAYCAT]

Mmmmm. Bacon ice cream. LOL

 

[moose eater]

No, I understood. The tempura was simply like a 'next step in evolution' kind of thought. We'll give the dredging of the bacon a sampling soon.

I cook the bulk of meals, my wife does most of the baking. Lately I've been burned out or otherwise encumbered, and she's kicked in more on the meals.

Anyway, she'd taken to frying pork chops lately with a HOT cast iron skillet, and timing the amount of time they spend on each side, but using spiced flour as a dredge on them, searing the outside of them on each side, and thus sealing in the moisture; a bit of black and white pepper, and, if you like, some onion powder and granulated garlic in the dredge, and they're pretty awesome pork chops.

Tempura fried bacon may be excellent.

What I was talking about isn't really breading. No eggs are used. You just lightly dust the bacon in flour then deep fry it. You can't really tell it has the flour coating when you eat it. It just comes out and tastes like perfect bacon.

I'm about to eat some now!

 

[moose eater]

I'd found a small handful of references on-line for them, but no real amount of customer reviews. And the package size and type of bacon described on-line didn't necessarily match what the local wholesaler has the remaining two cases of.

I took part in raising hogs in Northern Michigan (U.P.) 40-some years ago, and liked it. Far smarter critters than many give them credit for, and not as nearly odiferous as many complain, too.

If I don't find a bunch of valid customer reviews on-line or here, then I may simply throttle back on the second case, and take a chance on losing out, in order to get a chance to test the first case.

If it's not worthy of freezer space, I'd rather be faced with discarding 23 lbs than 47.

Though once upon a time we over-smoked some moose hot dogs, and despite their less than palatable nature, found that rehydrating them and diluting the salt by tossing them into some home-made beans and letting them simmer, they found their place in the meal schedule. Still ended up giving a 48 quart cooler of them to the soup line/homeless kitchen in town, with instructions about how to effectively overcome the less than stellar outcome.

A quick google search turns up a Daily's meats. Based in MO it appears.

We raise and sale pigs on our farm... 8 slices to a lb package... that is bacon. lol

 

[moose eater]

Caribou and moose are both really lean meats as a rule, unlike bear, which even when it appears to be lean, can be quite fat.


Many of the folks who make moose or caribou bacon actually use store-bought 'bacon ends and pieces,' and mix it into a reconstituted meat item, then cure it in a tray until it solidifies, and they slice it with a slicer.

We have all of the above, and the reconstituted smoked bacon described above is fine to the taste, but it's not what it's cracked up to be.

With moose and caribou, depending on the cuts, there's typically a lot of burger, cube steaks (if you have the right equipment), stew meat, top sirloin steaks or roasts, New York steaks or roasts (what folks commonly refer to as 'back-strap'), tenderloin (or fillet mignon) steaks or roasts, a bit of top round for stir-frying into strips or making jerky, and a fair amount of several different types of bulk sausages (i.e. moose chorizo, which we used last night in a burrito filling I make, moose breakfast sausage with the customary sage, pepper, etc., moose Italian sausage that we use for good/excellent spaghetti sauces, etc.) I have three smokers here, and we can also do smoked (cold or hot cured) sausages too, but that's a whole bunch more work, and I still have about 30 lbs. of pork grind/trim (60/40) waiting to go into the 60 lbs of moose scraps from last years moose, frozen in bulk, for smoking into linked sausages this Fall... If I can ever get chores completed.

As it is, I've got a whole field of awesome heirloom-grade potatoes to dig up, and the rest of the garden looking at me, like one of us is supposed to make the next move.

And I'm older, tired, and messed up..

This morning my wife once again said, "Ya' know... Maybe we ought to (accept our conditions) and plant less.. but to see all of that fertile, mostly organic awesome garden space we spent decades turning into the fertile ground it is not get planted properly.. seems wasteful. But harvest time continues to kick my ass..

Jeez, if you're taking wild game, then you should be making your own bacon. Try the "Buckboard" bacon and you'll find a new dawn...