Cure Your Own Bacon

Enlarge Image Image Gallery This bacon is ready and waiting to be sliced and enjoyed. iStockphoto.com/Boris Djuranovic

MAIN ARTICLE 

Bacon is a well-loved food. The bacon group on flickr has nearly 2,000 members. There are entire blogs about bacon  and even a bacon of the month club.  But bacon is also one of the foods that is made very differently today than it was originally. (Check out this video on how bacon is made.) Real homemade bacon tastes better and, from all reports, is much easier to make than you might think. When you’re ready to try for yourself, take a few tips from us.  

• First, where do I get a pork belly? Talk to your local grocer or butcher, or check out the Heritage Foods website for a chance at the belly of a particularly well-loved, heirloom breed hog delivered right to your door. 

• If you’re still wondering why you would want to cure your own bacon, check out Rebecca Traister’s bacon making article on salon.com (it’s worth a read purely for the Laura Ingalls Wilder references). 

• The 3 Men with Nothing Better to Do cover everything that could possibly have anything to do with barbecue, including a recipe and how-to for making and smoking bacon.

• The University of Missouri Extension offers an article on home curing bacon for a mild flavor.

• Dave Seldon over at BS Brewing (a blog about brewing and food) adds some humor to his bacon experiments.

• For a slightly more rustic version of bacon that involves hanging in a smokehouse (and jalapenos!), check out Cowgirl’s Country Life.   

• Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer over at the Paupered Chef will make your mouth water in posts they each offer about bacon. One includes tips and tricks on your first try at bacon, and the second involves smoking bacon in a gas grill (I think I could make this one work).