Who has the best bacon?

[Soonerfan88]

Carnivores, rejoice. This edition of Supermarket Standoff puts front and center the meat that claims unabashed adoration from food writers, chefs, and dudes 'round the world. Bacon has inspired large-scale festivals, questionable hygiene products, and now an international holiday. People love bacon.
A lot of it is produced in the U.S.--more than 2 billion pounds each year--which became quite clear when we were researching for this taste test. We whittled down the large volume of brands by choosing classic hickory- or applewood-smoked versions. We included both cured and uncured bacon; the latter is rising in popularity due to health-conscious baconnoisseurs. (Not-so-fun-but-at-least-educational-fact: the term "uncured" is a little misleading, since it's meant to indicate that the bacon is free of pork-preserving sodium nitrite. But uncured bacon generally uses celery juice, which releases natural sodium nitrate and nitrite anyway.)
Some of our tasters prefer their bacon crispy and charred, while others wanted it chewy and ham-like. Whichever camp you're in, you can be guided by both our top picks and nutritionist Marissa Lippert's favorites.

See rankings here: http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/686/supermarket-standoff-best-tasting-bacon/

[GottaHavePride]

Clearly, their sampling was limited only to brands you can find in and around New York. And they don't really know much about bacon up there.

[GDC]

Blue and Gold

[Soonerfan88]

I do like the Farmland they listed, buy it often.

[C&CDean]

Get your own hog, feed him out, and put him in the freezer. Cheap, and a BUTTLOAD of the best ham, pork chops and bacon than you could ever imagine could come from a single animal.

If you eat the beans at the tailgate, they always have a pound of fresh bacon fried up and chunked up in them. Momma just got a pound outta the freezer to thaw to get ready for the Mizzou tailgate. Yum.

[BudSooner]

Get your own hog, feed him out, and put him in the freezer. Cheap, and a BUTTLOAD of the best ham, pork chops and bacon than you could ever imagine could come from a single animal.

If you eat the beans at the tailgate, they always have a pound of fresh bacon fried up and chunked up in them. Momma just got a pound outta the freezer to thaw to get ready for the Mizzou tailgate. Yum.This is the way to go, really.
Much as I hate Traber, years ago he "said" he sponsored some kids FFA hog, and once the hog was thru with its show life the kid was willing to sell it to him for the price of feed+plus delivery expense to get it to the butcher.
Now i'm sure not everyone has this kind of deal they could get into but if I was offered that then hell yeah....I would jump right on it

Dean, have you ever heard such a thing?

[royalfan5]

Some people find it more rewarding to use a licensed commodity broker to purchase pork belly futures. Much cleaner and less hassle than buying your own hog.

[BudSooner]

Some people find it more rewarding to use a licensed commodity broker to purchase pork belly futures. Much cleaner and less hassle than buying your own hog.How would someone get in touch with a broker to do this?

[royalfan5]

Usually orders must be done via telephone, subject to the interested party having an open account. That being said, trading commodities requires more disclosure and requirements to open account than other financial instruments.

[BudSooner]

**** it, i'll get some Wrights bacon. :D

[virginiasooner]

Whole Foods Black Forest Bacon. Is the Whole Foods on North Western open yet?

[C&CDean]

Just call any semi-rural high school and talk to the FAA/Vo-Ag people about it. Tell them you want half-a-hog (cause frankly, a whole butchered hog fills up a pretty dang big freezer. They'll let you know if they have kids raising hogs and what the deal is to purchase one after they show it. A lot of times it will be at auction.

[thecynic]

We raise a couple of hogs a year. it is without a doubt 100 times better than what you buy at the store. It's really not even white meat. it's pinkish red and it's heavenly. I can't order any pork products when we go out to dinner, because is all pales in comparisons to what we raise ourselves.

granted since we have some land it's easier for us, but we usually buy a show pig that isn't good enough to show, but still has the breeding. (they are leaner) We feed it out on mostly corn and when they get to about 250 lbs or when we run out of pork, we take it in and a few weeks later it comes back in packages of meaty goodness.

We've also bought them straight from the show pen, and we've purchased babies and raised them up. (it takes too long to wait for us)

[Frozen Sooner]

Get your own hog, feed him out, and put him in the freezer. Cheap, and a BUTTLOAD of the best ham, pork chops and bacon than you could ever imagine could come from a single animal.

If you eat the beans at the tailgate, they always have a pound of fresh bacon fried up and chunked up in them. Momma just got a pound outta the freezer to thaw to get ready for the Mizzou tailgate. Yum.

Heh. I knew as soon as I saw this thread that 1. Dean would post in it and 2. Would say this.

[marfacowboy]

**** it, i'll get some Wrights bacon. :D

Truth. Wright's is, in my opinion, the best (http://www.wrightbrand.com/) hands down.

[TUSooner]

**** it, i'll get some Wrights bacon. :D

This is the best option for the 2 or 3 of us city folk around here who don't have easy access to live hogs.

I'm happy to see that decent thick-sliced bacon is more common than it used to be in our local grocery stores.

[KantoSooner]

Barnsdall Meat Processing.

Best Bacon on the planet. (pepper version)

Second: Ralph's in Perkins.

[NormanPride]

I buy that hormel microwave stuff.




It sucks.

[KantoSooner]

NP, you must learn to live a bit. Do thick cut bacon over a fire. Eat it with single barrel bourbon for dinner.
Makes you appreciate being alive.

[GDC]

Canada has pretty good bacon too.