Lamb Bacon, The Official Fat of stlbites.com
Sep 16, 2008 general food
“If you want to make people happy, give them bacon.”
-Anthony Bourdain
This morning, in the bacon section of my deep freeze, I found the remaining chunk of my Local Harvest Grocery lamb bacon. To be honest, I’d forgotten about it until Ellie suggested last week that we should do a bacon tasting for a Slow Food event someday. Discussions about the best local bacon briefly ensued, and I gave a nod to Local Harvest as having produced what are possibly my favorite, and the lamb bacon specifically.
Now I’d wager people love traditional bacon because people love minuscule chunks of crisp pork attached to much larger chunks of juicy, glistening pork fat. It is delicious, and some would argue it’s the best of fat followed by perhaps duck fat. I, however, have a tender place in my heart for lamb fat.
And so, when I saw lamb bacon with rosemary at Local Harvest a few months ago, it was a must have.
It doesn’t crisp up particularly and instead has a kind of chewy ham-like texture after rendering which I find strangely appealing. Take a bite and you’ll be greeted with the saltiness you’d expect of any bacon, followed by the richness of the succulent lamb fat, a dash of smoke and the permeating scent of rosemary that will linger in your kitchen for days. Put it in scrambled eggs and breakfast will reach new highs. Or hell, it’s cured so just slice it up and eat it straight.
It lived up to all expectations.
I’ve no idea if they still have it which makes this an utterly useless and outdated post, but be on the look out anyway, it’s not to be missed if it returns.
Tags: bacon, lamb, Local Harvest Grocery
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September 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
This might be a silly question, but because bacon is cured is it true then that you can just eat it without cooking it? It looks raw prior to frying and I feel like most think of it as a “raw” meat.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I suppose that was a bit of a blanket statement without your seeing the meat in question. This lamb bacon was dry to the touch and leaner like ham which is why I was comfortable eating it.
Someone with a greater knowledge of curing can probably offer up a better answer, however, it is my understanding that it would simply depend on the type and duration of the cure.
Pancetta is an example of one that I assume would be safe to eat because you actually cook it as part of the process. Making a sandwich of Oscar Meyer on the other hand would probably not be the greatest idea.
September 18th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
My bologna has a first name…..
December 30th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I just came across this post and wanted to let everyone know that the lamb and pork bacon will be back at Local Harvest soon, we had a smoker failure and had to save up for a new one… Regarding eating it without cooking, all of our bacon has reached at least 150 degrees internally, and I always slice off a bite when it comes out of the smoker, which is great – but it’s probably best to cook it to a higher temperature once you get it home. If nothing else, it’s going to really release the flavor when you do it.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Can I order this to Denver, Colorado?
May 2nd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I guess you’d have to ask Local Harvest. Kind of goes against the local angle, so I’d bet not.