Bacon-of-the-Month Club

When I first heard of the Bacon-of-the-Month club I assumed it was a joke, but it's not. For $140 the folks at Grateful Palate will send a different artisanal bacon to your home each month for a year. You also get a membership card, a monthly comic strip, a pen, t-shirt, and, for the Year of the Pig, a pig nose to wear around. Seems like quite a good deal for the pork connoisseurs out there. The club is "curated" by "Captain Bacon," Dan Philips, who chooses each year's bacon selections after a big "fry-up" of about 100 different bacons. You can also purchase over 40 different bacons from "The 2007 Dan Philips Ultimate Platinum Premium Bacon Collection" which you can find here.

There's a great NPR piece (here) about bacon from All Things Considered back in January 2007 featuring John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Edge explains the difference between the usual store-bought, mass-produced bacon and the artisanal versions, which taste like "the sweet, sweet essence of pig." The on-line version also includes a list of "Six Weird Ways of Makin' Bacon," including bacon peanut brittle and bacon baklava.