The Effort Of Making Real

Why does cooking real bacon have to be such a pain in the ass???

This is not be the deep, existential pondering you may be used to from me, but it’s what’s on my mind today, as I bounce up and down like a ping-pong ball between table and stove, babysitting that sizzling, never-finished mess in the greasy pan.  Bacon is an exacting taskmaster!  -Rummage through the cupboards, find the right skillet, heat it just so on the stove.  Open the package – an adventure in itself, sometimes – peel that cold, rubbery-slimy stuff apart piece by long stringy piece, put it on a plate lined with paper towel, put the first few pieces into the skillet.  The first satisfying sizzle and that glorious smell are muted by the overwhelming need to IMMEDIATELY scrub all the skin off my hands as my mother’s warnings ring between my ears:  “Don’t touch anything! Don’t leave that on your hands for a minute! Scrub everywhere, under your nails especially! use the hottest water you can stand! use half the soap bottle! scrub more! more! you’ll get worms and die!”  

most of my mother’s admonitions seemed to end in “…and die.”  But I digress.  Back to the bacon, sizzling in the pan.  Now I embark on a delicate process:  watching over it until it’s cooked to that exact, oh-so-thin middle ground between “you’ll-get-worms-and-die,” and “blackened, thermonuclear, inedible little piles of tooth-breaking soot.”  Sometimes I get it right; most times I end up with an end product that is somewhere slightly on one side or the other of the spectrum.  Sometimes on the same piece of bacon.  And then there is the grease.  Bacon smells wonderful; bacon grease does not.  Rummage again in the cupboard under the sink, pull out the current grease jar, put it in the sink.  Carefully, so as not to get third-degree burns (“…and die”), I bring the greasy skillet from stovetop to sink and pour out the grease into the jar.  Wipe the edge of the skillet quickly with a paper towel.  Then back to the stove for the next few pieces and the next frantic handwashing and the next delicate babysitting.  Lather, rinse, repeat, until the package is all cooked.  All this just so Son and I (and the Young Man, whom Daughter has lately drawn to us) can each have a couple of pieces.  The rest goes in the fridge for later microwaving as desired.

At this point, someone might sensibly ask:  “Well, Einstein, why dontcha just buy microwave bacon in the first place?”  -I have.  And it is much easier – faster, less messy.  If I have to feed a small army quickly, it’s definitely the way to go.  But it just doesn’t taste REAL to me.  Too hard, too flat, too same in taste and texture.  There are no bumps or ridges, no crannies for that delicious drop of melted fat to go.  There is no…personality.  Even going to a decent restaurant for breakfast and enjoying their yummy, non-microwaved bacon isn’t quite the same as going through the effort to cook it myself.  Restaurant bacon is usually close to perfect, but I don’t make perfect; I make real. 

Real tastes good.

~ by Mad God Woman on January 16, 2012.