This Week in Bacon
By now you’ve undoubtedly seen the words “Bacon is Meat Candy” plastered on some website or, perhaps, a t-shirt. The slogan is the brainchild of overcaffeinated BaconFreak.com founder Rocco, who contacted me a couple of weeks ago about our mutual interest in things cured and porcine.
We chatted about Rocco’s bacon of the month club, and Rocco agreed to send along some bacon, t-shirts, and bacon jerky–yes, you read right–for the Crispy potluck last weekend. (All the Crispy contributors save Jackson, who was unwilling to leave his wife and kids behind and drive 250 miles for mouthfuls of pork, were present.) Jerry’s already posted some nice snaps.
Anyways, the t-shirts were a giant hit, as expected. That’s my girlfriend suited up at right. The bacon, too, was overwhelmingly loved–it’s a real bacon-eaters’ bacon.
We tasted the Bourbon Street vanilla variety as a group. The vanilla was very subtle, and nicely balanced the salt and smoke. BaconFreak.com bacon is thickly cut, and has a great mouth feel. (Can you say that about bacon?)
Meanwhile, I stole the packages of hickory smoked bacon (chewy, salty, and gone in a blaze of crispyness well before the potluck) and the Cajun country bacon (the spicy aroma of which is wafting through my apartment and from my breath right now), while bacon-drink-maker Jerry nabbed the honey BBQ rubbed bacon.
In short, we loved the BaconFreak.com bacon.
The jerky was the only product that produced divergent views. Of those we sampled, the cajun variety seemed to more approximated the texture one expects of jerky. Every once in a while, though, we’d find a piece that seemed a little too moist–a little too underjerkified. The jerky, as I understand it, is a totally unique product that’s just coming to market. Based on the quality of the bacon itself, I’m confident BaconFreak.com will perfect the jerky in time.
Thanks to Rocco @ BaconFreak for the samples. You can learn more about his Bacon of the Month Club and other bacon and of-the-month varietals here.
Need more? Check out BaconUnwrapped.com’s Heather Lauer interviewing Rocco earlier this year. And Jerry and I spoke with Heather during a Crispy podcast (membah those?) earlier this year, too.
