I grew up on a working farm in NE Iowa. My dad raised high quality hogs. Not the mass-produced, poor-quality pork that you find in the grocery stores. I'm talking top-of-the-line, great-tasting meat, the stuff that wins awards at the Iowa State Fair and gets sent to high-end restaurants. When we cooked bacon growing up, there was less than 1 tablespoon of fat that came off an entire pound of bacon. When turkey bacon first became popular because it was leaner than pork bacon I remember thinking, "How is that even possible?" But then I left home and bought supermarket bacon for the first time in my life. I cooked 5 pieces in a cast-iron skillet and they were drowning in grease and it was only 5 pieces, nowhere near a whole pound. When I called my mom to complain she remarked, "Honey, it's not your dad's bacon. Welcome to the world of commercial meat." All I could say was "Yuck."
It was also at that point back in the late 1980s that I decided supermarket meat was a waste of money, and I've been buying my beef and pork from the farmers I grew up with ever since. As a result, my kids have become bona fide bacon snobs. I usually don't even bother buying bacon from the store, but Erin had a big sleep over party last night so this morning I was quite literally making breakfast for a crowd.
I found this pre-cooked bacon dirt cheap at Ultra Foods and figured this was as good a time as any to give it a try. I should have known better.
Erin took one look at it and knew it wasn't "Grandpa's bacon." She hollered out, "What is this? 'Cause it's not real bacon!"
After tasting it Drew remarked, "Eww! It tastes like I'm chewing on a shoe lace!"
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