by Ron James

Created on: December 31, 2008

Celebrity chef Michael Symon thinks everything goes better with bacon. I tend to agree, although I'm not sure I'm up for the chocolate covered bacon I once saw him prepare.

Bacon happens to be the first food I learned to cook. Back when I was about six years old, I used to beg for bacon at breakfast, lunch, and supper. Finally, my long-suffering mother broke down and taught me how to cook it myself so that she wouldn't have to deal with my constant demands for what the USDA defines as "the cured belly of a swine carcass." Such an inelegant description of ambrosia!

Since this article is intended to instruct on the cooking of bacon rather than on its character, I won't go into the different types of bacon (back bacon, jowl bacon, cottage bacon, middle bacon, streaky bacon), or the different curing processes (sugar cured, applewood smoked, hickory smoked, unsmoked). Let's just assume we're dealing with ordinary strips, slices, or rashers of good old grocery store bacon.

First, pick out a good quality bacon. In the US, Oscar Mayer is probably the top of the line national brand, but there are lots and lots of other fine quality national and regional brands to choose from. Local and store brands are an "iffy" proposition. Publix has an excellent store brand bacon, but I have not found many other store brands that compare favorably to the more expensive name brands.

Case in point: I have a relative who is absolutely, positively convinced that store brands and economy brands are every bit as good as name brands. I can't convince him that saving pennies on the cheapest stuff he can buy sometimes winds up costing more in the long run. So when I went shopping with him, I bought a pound of Hormel Black Label bacon and he bought his usual cut rate brand. I cooked up batches of both and laid them out side by side on a plate. My bacon had minimal shrinkage. Each piece cooked up to a length of between five and six inches. It retained a nice even strip of lean meat throughout. It cooked evenly and had a wonderful, rich flavor. His bacon shrank down to little pieces of curled up fat barely three inches in length with practically no lean meat on them. And it was absolutely flavorless. But it was sixty-five cents cheaper than my Hormel. You get what you pay for.

Next, choose your cooking medium. I learned to cook bacon on a flat top grill plate, and I've used everything from electric griddles to toaster ovens to broilers to non-stick cookware. And, of course, there is always the microwave.

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