Bristol Farms Bacon pt 1 of 2

O.K. so I work in an area that is kind of "hoity toity", I believe I mentioned the Porsche & Jaguar crowd in a previous post, while my bacon colored Honda suits me just fine, I do like to see how the other half lives by going to the premium markets and scoping out their bacon selections. On my way home I stopped at Bristol Farms. It is a pretty cool market, it reminded me of Whole Foods, but with Mountain Dew. They didn't have much in the way of packaged bacon, some Oscar Mayer, Farmer John's, and a house brand. The butcher's counter was quite large and when I checked they had two types of bacon. When I saw how thick the cuts were, I knew I had my bacon for the evening. The first was a generic "Thick Sliced Bacon" and an Apple wood Smoked Bacon that ran about $2 a pound more.

I picked up a pound of both and headed toward the front of the store. On my way I just happened to be in the refrigerated beer section, and there on the shelf, my favorite beer Hacker-Pschorr Weisse, thick bacon and good cold beer, this store may be alright. Part one is the generic "cheap" bacon and once I cook up the other package I'll post part two.

This is what it looked like in the display case. It is a really thick cut and for me that is a plus, I prefer the thick cut to the thin. You can see from the picture that it is a pretty fatty bacon, but more on that in a bit. The package was just over a pound and once I got it open I counted 13 slices. That a great ratio for thick bacon. Time to cook it up. When cooking anything other than "instant bacon" (review coming soon) I usually use the standard LoB approved method, but tonight I felt like mixing it up a bit, being a little more hands on. Tonight I am going to cook it up on the George Foreman Grill, ok... not exactly hands on, but a little more involved than normal. I think I may have been inspired by the Office quote on Royal Bacon Society the other day.

This is a close up of the thickness of the bacon, you can sort of see that it is a fatty bacon. Let me tell you my bacon butter jar got topped off from this batch. I cooked it up till it was barely crispy, and gave it a trey. I was concerned that it would be too salty, but it wasn't. It had a good flavor, hint of smokiness, but it had a very fatty finish. Don't get me wrong I love the hog fat..... mmmm hog fat.... but this had an oily after taste. So it gets points on thickness but loses them on the greasy finish. A smokey finish or at least a meaty taste after you finish is what draws you in for another piece, this just didn't have that. Overall it was a mediocre bacon, it would be great for a BLT or sandwich bacon, but doesn't cut it as a stand alone bacon.

I give it 2 and a half strips.