Bacon shortage "unavoidable"

[HTRN]

Buy bellies now!

Then you cure 'em. then you cold smoke 'em.

[Rich Jordan]

Our new chest freezer arrives Friday. A quantity of bacon will be purchased to store in it by the end of the weekend (and no, the freezer was not in response to this; we've been planning it for a while).

I think I'll also grab 3-4 bags of the tasty GFS bacon bits next trip, just because.

[Gunnuts]

News report here estimated a 5% increase in prices locally.

Better than a shortage report though.

[Highspeed]

Only bacon here that's edible ( for a nation who has pork as a staple diet they don't seem able to produce good bacon ) is Oscar Mayer - it's not great, but it's the best we can get. I just went to the fridge to see if it's US produced ( can't be shipped all the way here, surely ? ) but I can't read the writing on the packet without a bloody microscope.

I have been trying to persuade the missis that we need a pig, but she reckons they are too intelligent and it'll end up being a pet.
I used to spend a hell of a lot of time vermin hunting on pig farms and I never noticed them doing advanced particle physics or inventing piggy spaceflight, mostly they just liked lying around in the mud. But She Has Spoken

[blackeagle603]

...mostly they just liked lying around in the mud.

You may have just made her case.

"Farm living is the life for me..., ...forget Manhattan just give me that countryside"

[Highspeed]

You may have just made her case.

"Farm living is the life for me..., ...forget Manhattan just give me that countryside"

Yeah, they were probably listening to 'Long Haired Country Boy' by Charlie Daniels

My mate once convinced his ( young and not too bright ) shooting partner that he'd killed one of the sows with a ricochet, and told him to go inside the electric fence and check it was dead. The lad booted the 'dead' sow up the arse ( why ? ) and it gave a huge squeal, rose up righteously and chased him back over the electric fencing. If he'd been a second slower I think Mrs Outraged Pig would have eaten him. One of the funniest things I've ever seen

[Termite]

HS,

You prefer fatty or "streaky" bacon to your British or Irish shoulder/neck bacon?

[Termite]

Are wild hogs any good for bacon?

While the flavor can be very good, I won't eat wild pork unless it is very well cooked. Feral hogs, at least those in east Texas/Louisiana/Mississippi, are carriers of all sorts of deseases and parasites. I even wear rubber gloves while cleaning them.
I prefer my bacon a bit chewy, not well done and crisp. Curing and smoking may kill all the bad stuff, but I'm not sure.

[Highspeed]

HS,

You prefer fatty or "streaky" bacon to your British or Irish shoulder/neck bacon?

I'll eat either, but if the bacon is fatty I want the fat to be crisp. It's a bit difficult to get it that way without making the whole rasher ( thinking of correct word, can't find one ) 'frangible'

My favourite is oak smoked shoulder bacon, any excessive fat trimmed off and cooked until chewy...

I must check on the situation with the boar meat here ( not that I have anything to shoot a boar with yet ) regarding diseases. Maybe it's different because our boar are a different species to US feral hogs ? maybe not.

[Denis]

Maybe it's different because our boar are a different species to US feral hogs ? maybe not.

Iberian boar are Sus Scrofa (Iberica), a subspecies of the Eurasian boar Sus Scrofa. Sus Sus, the domestic pig is just a domesticated Scofa, and feral pigs quickly revert to boar-like behaviour and aspect. what you need to worry about is trichinosis. They are not that common, and can be destroyed by prolonged cooking (not by freezing), but if you get a live one, they can be the death of you, in a very nasty way.

The thing to do is to take samples for testing (forearm, intercostal and spleen) from your boar, then freeze the boar meat until you get a "clear" result. You can have the samples tested cheaply along with regular samples from domestic swine - any slaughterhouse or vet can tell you how.