Ytukyg

In commercials and when I go to restaurants (even fast food!) the bacon that I get is a reddish brown color and seems to be mostly meat, or at least meat textured. However, when I buy bacon at the grocery store, it's inevitably almost all fat. It curls badly when cooked, creates a ton of grease, and never looks anything like what "professional" bacon does.

I've tried thin sliced, thick sliced, apple wood smoked, etc. , etc. and I always seem to have the same problem. I try to look through the packages and I can never find anything that has mostly meat (lots of white fat). Even when I find a pack that looks good, it seems like the few slices I can see are meaty, but the rest are again mostly fatty.

So, what is the secret? Where do restaurants get their perfect bacon? Do I need to ask the grocery meet department for a secret stash of pro bacon? Do I need to go out of my way to a special shop? Is there a name for what I'm looking for other than "bacon"?

I'm in the US, Texas. I know other countries have different ideas of what "bacon" is (right?).

In the UK there are two main cuts of bacon.

There's "streaky bacon", which is cut from the pork belly. This is mostly what you get in the US.

There's also "back bacon" which is cut from the pork loin. This is generally more popular and is very much leaner than streaky bacon. In the US you call it "Canadian bacon".

You can also get "middle bacon" which is cut from both, i.e. a contiguous cut from belly to loin - a piece of streaky bacon and back bacon combined.

More explicit answer for the USA: USDA says that bacon is not graded.

Is bacon inspected and graded?

All bacon found in retail stores is either USDA inspected for wholesomeness or inspected by State systems that have standards equal to the Federal government. Each animal, from which the bacon is made, is inspected for signs of disease. The "Inspected and Passed by USDA" seal ensures the bacon is wholesome.

Bacon is not graded.

I am going to say that in most cases, labels like premium, artisan, etc. are marketing gimmicks. I do not know of any labeling rules that will tell you a given bacon is from a better quality pork belly than another. But, there is certainly a difference, and cheap bacon is just that, cheap and been made from the cheapest pork bellies obtained in mass. In general, they come from large hogs that are fatty and have little lean in their bellies. Meatier bacon, more lean tends to be from younger animals which are less economical for mass producers so will cost much more and tend to go to restaurants at a higher price. Family restaurants like breakfast houses will mostly use common bacon, and the will also tend to oven prep it as offered in comments which allows for more even cooking, cooking in quantity and controlling curling.

If you want leaner, that is with a higher amount of muscle tissue, that is what typically the windows on bacon packs are for, taking a look. The cheaper, mass produced will seldom be high meat content though. The specialty (read expensive) ones will have a better shot at lower percentage of fat. If however you find a butcher shop, especially one that cures and smokes their own meats, that is when you will likely find bacon that has been made from hand selected bellies with the highest muscle content.

I have been lucky in that local stores have started carrying raw pork bellies, so I make my own and can hand pick my own bellies and get the meat content I want. One thing you should know though, if you go over a certain level, some people do not like the results. At the highest level of muscle, the bacon can start to be too lean for many people's taste and start to become tough. More muscle content can sometimes also increase the tendencies to curl as well because the muscle can contract more during cooking than the fat. Again, going to the oven might be the easiest approach to reducing this.

The bacon you see on tv has been cooked. Once you cook the fatty bacon you can buy, you will see that it is pretty uniformly brown. If you cook it correctly that is, so it's crisp, and don't just try to microwave it or something :-)?

You're assuming that fat is bad. In meats at least, it's the primary vector of flavor. You're not in any case generally meant to keep ALL the fat thrown off in the cooking process for the rest of the dish. People frequently drain bacon which will be eaten separately on a paper towel on a plate, for instance.

So test bacons out, see what level of additives you can stand, personally I prefer mine uncured, not a legal term but usually means nitrate-free. But don't try to pick by eyeballing the fat content, that's if anything counter-productive.

In my experience, 'center-cut' bacon tends to have a much higher meat/fat ratio than major brand bacon. It's also more expensive.

"Irish" Bacon is made from the back of the pig, not the pork belly; it's much leaner, but hard to find in Minneapolis where I live.