Paean to the Pig

I'm sorry Bubbi
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to make you kvetch
But today, I'm frying up some bacon.

One of the definitive interpretations of my reform Jewish upbringing is that bacon is delicious. Perhaps pork is so coveted because it is verboten by Kosher dictates. I'm no New Testament scholar, but I think the biblical moratorium may have had something to do with J.C. leaving the tribe.

Samuel L. Jackson's Jules may not dig on swine, but I am firmly in the Travolta camp on this one. Bacon tastes good; pork chops taste good. And to think that they both come from the same animal! That "super animal," which Homer Simpson exalted in a futile attempt to bring out the omnivore in Lisa, overflows with culinary offerings, ranging from sweet to salty, the pink to the translucent.

Yet none of the swine is quite so fine as that bacon of mine. The bacon we know and love typically comes from the porker's side, between the fifth rib and the hipbone. Apply brine and salt, smoke liberally, and you have a breakfast-time treasure.

I'll be the first to admit, however, that bacon can be problematic. Hunks of ham that seem robust in their packages often simmer down to a mere pittance of pork, and the grease left behind in the pan can prove to be an even greater deterrent. You can't pour the grease down the drain--it will congeal. But, I also do not recommend storing it. We used to keep our bacon fat in a canister under the sink, but the dog got into it once and threw up on my Mormon friend's mom's shoes.

My fellow campers and I encountered the very same problem (extra fat, not Mormon moms) on the beginning of a long hiking trip some years ago. After frying up some of our last perishable food for a fortnight, we were left with a dilemma. On the one hand, we couldn't pour the fat out and turn some bear into a veritable heroin addict; on the other, we weren't going to take a bagful touring Michigan's scenic Upper Peninsula.

My British counselor had a solution. Alone, the fat was unapproachable, but we had eager solvents waiting in uncooked eggs and toast. We soaked, ate, and smiled. This was an English breakfast, and it changed the way I looked at the great outdoors.

I don't have any queen's men on hand, so I will assume that fat-saturated toast is the British equivalent of Pop Tarts. I'm no anglophile, but I think they're onto something here. It was a win-win situation: no mess and a belly full of bliss. If there are Brits out there who aren't familiar with their national practice, all I can say is, "Get with it, bloke, breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

Of course, like the British, all bacon is not created equal. A family friend--and, incidentally, a 1970's alumnus of the Spectator's food section--knows this as well as anyone. Mr. X, as we'll refer to him, goes out of his way to have bacon from Pierz, Minnesota shipped to him in Yonkers, New York.

He learned about Thielen Meats and their famous home-smoked, extra meaty bacon only to discover that they lacked the federal approval necessary for interstate shipment. Mr. X was undeterred: "I place the order and have it delivered to Duluth. My Duluth connection slaps a FedEx label on it and sends it to me. I have my own FedEx account number just to facilitate this process. My kids are a bit embarrassed that I smuggle bacon."

I've tried this smuggled bacon. This is special smuggled bacon. For a town of 1,277, Pierz produces something that just might change the course of Western Civilization. You just have to be willing to break Jewish and federal law to get some.